CBS’ Nancy Tellem steps down to take advisor gig

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Nancy Tellem, one of CBS Chief Executive Leslie Moonves’ top lieutenants and boss of the bulk of the media conglomerate’s entertainment operations, is stepping down from her post to become a senior advisor to Moonves.

Tellem’s departure from active duty to advisor had been expected. Over the last several years, Tellem, 57, has wanted to ease out of her day-to-day role only to be persuaded by Moonves to stay on. He is still pretty persuasive as Tellem has agreed to remain in charge of CBS’ 50% stake in the CW network, which is a joint venture with Time Warner’s Warner Bros.

In her new role, Tellem will work across all CBS divisions with a focus on developing new production models and revenue streams for emerging media. No replacement for Tellem will be named and her two key direct reports, CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler and CBS Television Studios President David Stapf, will now report to Moonves.

Tellem has been at CBS for more than 10 years and before that worked closely with Moonves at Warner Bros. In her current position of president of the CBS Network Television Entertainment Group, she oversaw both the network and the production studio

‘She has been looking for a new challenge and is very passionate about this transformative time in our business,’ Moonves said in a statement.

Tellem is the second major executive to step back at CBS of late. This fall, Quincy Smith, who oversaw CBS’ digital operations, resigned to take a consulting role.

-- Joe Flint