Howard Stringer, who brought David Letterman to CBS but lost the NFL to Rupert Murdoch, will lead Bell Atlantic and two telephone industry partners into the potential gold mine -- or tar pit -- of interactive entertainment and technology.
The outspoken Welsh-born broadcast executive said at a press conference in New York yesterday that he has accepted the job of chairman and chief executive of the yet-unnamed media and technology company established last year by Bell Atlantic, Nynex Corp. and Pacific Telesis Group.
Mr. Stringer, 53, said CBS Chairman Lawrence Tisch had agreed to release him from his contract with the network, where he has worked for three decades as a director, producer, head of CBS News and since 1988 as president of the CBS Broadcast Group. CBS announced yesterday that Peter Lund, president of CBS/Broadcast Group, would replace Mr. Stringer.
"This opportunity is simply too good to miss," Mr. Stringer said. He declined to discuss his contract.
The Stringer appointment, which had been rumored for weeks, brings an instant infusion of credibility to the three telephone companies' first venture outside the business of providing a conduit for information.
"This is the single most aggressive action by the [telephone companies] indicating their seriousness in entering the entertainment business," said August E. Grant, associate professor of mass communications at the University of Texas. "It's especially important because of his depth. He not only understands the business end but also programming and how news fits into programming."
The primary mission of Mr. Stringer's new company will be to provide content that will make viewers want to watch when the telephone companies start offering video programming over the enhanced networks they are spending billions to build.
The companies announced the media/technology venture, which was launched with the guidance of Hollywood agent Michael Ovitz's Creative Artists Agency, last Halloween.
With guaranteed access to the networks of its three partners, the new company will reach six of the top seven media markets in the country -- New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Bell Atlantic's network, which it hopes to bring on line as a commercial venture by next year, will include Baltimore in its first phase of commercial rollout.
Mr. Stringer had led CBS Television to the No. 1 position in prime time ratings during the 1991-1993 period, but over the past year the network's ratings have slipped and its morale has waned because of the loss of National Football League TV rights to Mr. Murdoch's Fox network and the defection of some large affiliate stations.
CBS is widely reported to be up for sale.
Admitting his frustration with the broadcast industry's obsession with high ratings, Mr. Stringer said yesterday that the telephone companies' chief executives had offered him an opportunity to create programming that was not "trapped by the tyranny of numbers."
"You can say I'm naive and a nitwit, but I'm hooked," Mr. Stringer said.