LOS ANGELES — Billionaire Sumner Redstone resigned as chairman of CBS Corp. in a surprise move that immediately raised speculation that his reign at Viacom Inc. could also soon be over.
CBS said chief executive Les Moonves will replace Redstone, ending years of speculation about when the billionaire would cede control of his prized broadcasting company. At the same time, Redstone’s daughter Shari revealed her intentions for succession at Viacom, the other piece of the family media empire. She said no member of the family trust — a list that includes herself and Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman — should get the chairman’s job.
“It is my firm belief that whoever may succeed my father as chair at each company should be someone who is not a trustee of my father’s trust or otherwise intertwined in Redstone family matters, but rather a leader with an independent voice,’’ Shari Redstone said in the statement Wednesday. “I was honored to nominate Les as the CBS chair and am delighted to congratulate him on his new position.’’
The action at CBS and Shari Redstone’s statement signals that after a long period of uncertainty during the elder Redstone’s decline, questions of succession in the family empire are about to be settled. A doctor examined the 92-year-old last week in an unrelated case concerning his mental fitness. Viacom’s board is scheduled to meet Thursday.
Shares of both companies rose. CBS gained 3.9 percent to $50.13 in extended trading after the Moonves announcement. Viacom Class B shares advanced 9.9 percent to $49.10. CBS owns the most-watched US broadcast network. Viacom is parent of cable networks including Nickelodeon and MTV, and of the Paramount Pictures film studio.
“People think that Philippe Dauman is about to have a different boss, a different person in that seat that Sumner is abandoning,’’ said Laura Martin, an analyst at Needham & Co. who follows both companies.
Moonves, 66, will remain CBS’s president and CEO, according to a statement Wednesday by the broadcaster. Redstone submitted his resignation effective Tuesday and is now chairman emeritus. Shari Redstone, 61, remains vice chairman.
As the elder Redstone has aged, he has faced questions about whether he is still mentally fit to run CBS and Viacom. While the family trust has a provision that lets his daughter become CBS’s chairman on his death, Shari Redstone had an agreement with Moonves handing that role to him instead, a person familiar with the situation said last year.
The results of Redstone’s exam haven’t been made public, and CBS didn’t mention it in announcing his resignation.
Moonves, who joined CBS in 1995 as president of CBS Entertainment, has been president and CEO of CBS Corp. since 2006, when the company was separated from Viacom.
Redstone controls the majority of the voting shares of both CBS and Viacom through a family holding company, National Amusements Inc. Together, the companies have a market value of about $40 billion.
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