Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 1, 1993 TAG: 9303010239
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRAZIER MOORE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
CBS' STRINGER HAS REASON TO SMILE
"I never felt any doubts as to whether I was doing the right thing," says CBS boss Howard Stringer, speaking of his months-long courtship of David Letterman."But I knew not to get my hopes too high up," Stringer adds. "Four years ago when we started rebuilding the network I got in the habit of patience."
Around some industry bigwigs, maybe you need a translator to get through the execu-speak. Their button-down manner can have you fretting that somewhere you missed a button of your own.
What a pleasure, then, to sit a spell with Howard Stringer.
His stately corner office on the 34th floor of CBS headquarters never lets you forget he's a big shot, bigger even than his commanding 6-foot-3-inch frame.
Yet here's a wheel with a disarming sensibility who can toss off a line like, "You've got to be humble in this business because you can be terribly wrong. And then you say, `What the hell.' "
He's a man of good cheer who laughs at Monty Python, "Saturday Night Live" and - you betcha - David Letterman, who, as if you didn't know, agreed last month to bring his NBC late-night talk show to CBS in August. Stringer, the man who bagged Dave, fearlessly called his signing "a red-Lettermanday."
Welsh-born (he became a U.S. citizen in 1985), Stringer got bachelor's and master's degrees in history at Oxford University. He is a man of certain polish and natty dress. And on this recent morning, he volunteers that he has forgotten his belt.
"I'm EXHAUSTED," explains the proud father of 8-week-old David Ridley Stringer. "My first purchase other than for the baby was a wretched treadmill. I'm gonna have to get into better physical condition in order to compete with this little chap."
Stringer, 51, is a career CBS man who started in operations at WCBS-TV in 1965 and then rose through the ranks of CBS News, including a stint as executive producer of "The CBS Evening News," capped by two years as CBS News president. He weathered CBS' turbulent '80s ("a pretty desperate decade when we were fighting a rear-guard action against the future") and, in 1988, won what might have seemed to be the booby prize: the network's top spot.
By his own admission not gifted with "bottom-line wizardry," Stringer instead saw his mission in this corner office as "putting on programs that work."
This he has done, step by patient step (including missteps like the clinker "Tequila and Bonetti"). And eventually it paid off. In the 1991-92 season, CBS ascended from third place to finishfirst.
"As an ex-producer," says Stringer, "I understand the collaborative process, and I've tried to create one large collaboration in which people are not afraid to come up with ideas and share them.
"I'd love to tell you that people are frightened of me or in awe of me," he says with a smile, "but they're not - not even remotely."
Stringer has not only helped restore pride and purpose to a network he once described as "suffering from a mild nervous breakdown." He also has become a passionate advocate for network broadcasting overall.
He voices this quaint notion at a time when the public is dazzled by the promise of flashy new technologies, when visions of 500 cable channels and interactive TV dance in their heads. Meanwhile, the Old Guard networks are often likened to animals by media analysts: a trio of dinosaurs or three blindmice.
"For all the problems and shortcomings, there's a need for us," Stringer insists. "The networks' creation of mass programming has been enormously successful. [Cable channels'] niche programming fragments the talent and the audience, and it can fragment the nation. Those things that remind us of our common identity would seem to be more important now than ever."
Stringer in a sense reports to all 93 million TV homes where that common identity is shared. Cab drivers lecture him on program strategies. His baby-nurse agency's director sent him a script.
It's all part of the fun, Stringer says.
"I get to listen to your opinions, somebody else's opinions, and, unlike the case if I were, say, an astronomer, those opinions are often worth something. This is not a lonely business."
And nothing like a certain wretched treadmill. He gets to leave that at home.