[BC] Frank Stanton is dead

[Rich Wood]

------ At 05:15 AM 12/31/2006, Jeffrey Kopp wrote: -------

>The network's ubiquitous employment of a variant of the Bodoni 
>typeface known as
>Didot (aka CBS Didot) was significant, as it lent print credibility 
>to television in an era
>when it was not yet fully trusted by the public. (Pre-1964, many 
>folks would wait for
>the newspaper to confirm what they'd seen or heard on the air.) I 
>think I've read that
>Stanton even specified its use on all the clocks and the elevators 
>in Black Rock.

According to long-time friends who did time at CBS, Stanton was 
compulsive. When Black Rock was built employees couldn't have family 
pictures on their desks. Any picture in an office had to come from 
the CBS art collection (separate from the Paley collection). Most 
companies have trade dress colors. CBS had trade dress everything. It 
was elegant but didn't have a very human touch. On my last visit to 
Black Rock it looked like a badly maintained factory. The maintenance 
staff was actually washing the lobby floors during business hours. 
Both Paley and Stanton would have been horrified. The Stanton/Paley 
elegance was gone and cubicles and movable walls prevailed. It made 
sense because Tisch was a fan of the pink slip and one never knew who 
would be working where at any time. Black Rock might as well have 
been a Loews hotel ballroom with those walls that made large 
ballrooms into intimate meeting rooms. It was CBS' rubber chicken period.

I remember working at ABC and being recruited by CBS. The interview 
was held in a tiny corner office on an executive floor that had been 
built within another office. This was during the Tisch reign. It 
struck me as an announce booth. I remember feeling bad for the highly 
placed VP who interviewed me. The title didn't seem to mean much 
compared to earlier days.

Both Paley and Stanton were so divorced from the average person's 
reality that Paley built a restaurant called "The Ground Floor" so 
his secretaries could enjoy a good $8 lunch (his own words). In those 
days that would have been close to eating at Tavern on the Green 
every day. I don't believe they were given raises to afford eating at 
his restaurant.

I don't know many who still consider broadcasting a glamorous showbiz 
industry.

Rich