Les Moonves’s Sexual Harassment Scandal Threatens Future of CBS

Editor’s Note: Sometimes the boss can put his company in a tough place. Here’s an overview of the types of key man risk.

Years ago, Leslie Moonves helped rescue CBS Corp. from the brink of irrelevance, in part by greenlighting Survivor, a massively popular reality TV show about island castaways using cunning and instinct to outlast their competitors. Over years as chief executive officer, Moonves came to epitomize the same essential pretext as his network’s hit show: the art of survival. When controversies dragged down many of CBS’s most prominent stars, including Dan Rather and Charlie Rose, Moonves persevered. When changes in technology laid waste to much of the traditional media industry, CBS improbably prospered. And when CBS’s controlling overseer, Sumner Redstone, descended into senility, the resulting drama—imploding love triangles, clashing heirs, humiliating lawsuits—never punctured Moonves’s air of invincibility. CBS was his island, and nothing could endanger the company’s surprising run because nothing could endanger Moonves.