May 12, 2006 01:35 PM
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According to Page Six, skeletal Viacom executive presence Sumner Redstone was so displeased by rumors that corporate lieutenants Les Moonves and Tom Freston are leaking stories about each other to the press that he leaned back in his throne (upholstered, of course, in the tanned flesh of a former board member who once disappointed him), breathed a world-weary sigh that rattled his frail rib cage in a most unpleasant way, and finally gave two exasperated tugs on the velvet cord dangling behind him, summoning his bickering minions for a sit-down in which he could personally administer a punitive spoonful of castor oil to each chairman:
Insiders say that nasty stories have been leaked to reporters about Viacom chief Tom Freston and CBS boss Les Moonves - and that staffs of each man believe the stories are being pitched by the rival camp.When the chief flack for one chairman called the flack for the other and accused him of spreading lies, the spokesman allegedly confessed, "You're right. I work for a deeply insecure man who made me do this."
News of the dirty trickery soon reached Redstone, who supposedly called "a come-to-Jesus meeting" where he told both Freston and Moonves to knock off the hostilities.
Spokespersons for both CBS and Viacom deny any such meeting took place. But an insider confirmed, "Somebody malicious, who would like the two guys to be fighting against each other, is trying to spread lies." [...]
Redstone doesn't seem to mind the rivalry. "They are both fierce competitors. And that doesn't bother me," he told Newsweek last month. "They both want to win . . . I like winners . . . They have the right to compete with each other in any area of their businesses, as long as they don't do something outside the law that puts the other one out of business."
That kind of amazing foresight is an excellent example of how Redstone has managed to maintain his iron-fisted (or more precisely, a brittle fist inside an iron gauntlet) control over his corporate empire these last 215 years. A lesser executive might have neglected to officially prohibit his underlings from the commission of illegal acts, leaving Moonves a crucial loophole permitting him to finally order Freston's murder.
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