Despite his success at ABC, Aubrey saw a limited future at the network and asked to return to CBS. He returned on April 28, 1958, initially as an assistant to
Frank Stanton, the president of CBS Inc., which owned the network.
Thomas W. Moore would later replace Aubrey at ABC. At CBS, Aubrey was appointed as vice president for creative services in April 1959, replacing
Louis G. Cowan, whom CBS promoted to network president. Aubrey was named executive vice president on June 1, 1959, a newly created position that was the number-two official at the network. His responsibilities involved general supervision of all departments of the CBS Television Network. On December 8, 1959, Cowan resigned, having been damaged from his connection to the quiz-show scandals. Cowan had created the show
The $64,000 Question, and owned the company that produced it for the network, although Cowan denied he knew anything about the rigging of the program. Cowan's letter of resignation to Stanton declared, "you have made it impossible for me to continue". Aubrey was appointed president the same day and elected to the board of directors on December 9, 1959. Aubrey served as a successful president of the CBS Network for the next five years. Oulahan and Lambert later described him as the first network president who was both "fiscal wizard and a showman"; CBS increased ratings and profits, from $25 million to $39 million. In the
1963–64 season, 14 of the top-15
primetime shows were on CBS, an accomplishment
Variety later compared to
Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak. The lone evening exception was NBC's
Bonanza, the first color one hour Western ranked number two. 12 of the top daytime programs were also on CBS. Oulahan and Lambert wrote after his firing: In the long history of human communications, from
tom-tom to
Telstar, no one man ever had a lock on such enormous audiences as James Thomas Aubrey Jr. during his five-year tenure as head of the Columbia Broadcasting System's television network [...] He was the world's No. 1 purveyor of entertainment.
Aubrey's formula Aubrey's formula was characterized by a CBS executive as "broads, bosoms, and fun". Author
David Halberstam called Aubrey, "The hucksters'
huckster [...] whose greatest legacy to television was a program called
The Beverly Hillbillies, a series so demented and tasteless that it boggles the mind". Besides Paley, Stanton and
Michael Dann were among others at CBS that disliked the show. Columnist
Murray Kempton described
Hillbillies as "a confrontation of the characters of
John Steinbeck with the environment of
Spyros Skouras", Another part of Aubrey's formula was ensuring that the commercial interests of CBS's sponsors were kept foremost in their minds. In 1960, he elaborated on this idea more when he told the Office of Network Study:There is relatively little that is incompatible between our objectives and the objectives of the advertisers... Before sponsorship of a program series commences there is often a meeting between production personnel and representatives of the advertiser at which time the general areas of the advertiser's interest and general attitudes are discussed. A breakfast food advertiser may, for example, wish to make sure the programs do not contain elements that make breakfast distasteful. A cigarette manufacturer would not wish to have cigarette smoking depicted in an unattractive manner. Normally, as long as these considerations do not limit creativity, they will be adhered to.
Dominance and controversy CBS became so influential that when the fall schedules were announced, ABC and NBC would wait until CBS announced its rota before making plans to keep up, effectively making Aubrey programmer for all three networks. CBS enjoyed success with rural-themed sitcoms such as the
Hillbillies,
The Andy Griffith Show,
Mister Ed,
Green Acres, and
Petticoat Junction. Paley highly disliked the CBS hit
The Munsters, part of a trend of fantasy shows at the time that included CBS's
My Favorite Martian and ''
Gilligan's Island'', but did not interfere with Aubrey's decisions; Dann later said "It was the only time in CBS history that Paley completely abdicated running the network". Aubrey's "unwritten code" for programs was described in
Life magazine: Feed the public little more than rural comedies, fast-moving detective dramas, and later, sexy dolls. No old people; the emphasis was on youth. No domestic servants, the mass audience wouldn't identify with maids. No serious problems to cope with. Every script had to be full of action. No physical infirmities. Exceptions existed, such as
The Defenders with
E.G. Marshall and
Robert Reed as socially conscious attorneys, which ran for four years, or
East Side/West Side with
George C. Scott as a New York City social worker, which was cancelled after just one season despite receiving eight Emmy Award nominations. Aubrey defended charges of pandering to the public. "I felt that we had an obligation to reach the vast majority of most of the people", he said. "We made an effort to continue purposeful drama on TV, but we found out that people just don't want an anthology. They would rather tune in on
Lucy". Receptive of the nation becoming tired of high-culture programming and turning to sitcoms, Aubrey contributed to the "
vast wasteland" of inferior TV. In 1962, a
United States Senate committee investigating
juvenile delinquency held hearings on sex on television and called executives from the three networks. The chairman, Senator
Thomas J. Dodd, blasted "an unmistakable pattern", and informed the executives "you all seem to use the same terminology—to think alike—and to jam this stuff down the people's throat". Dodd accused Aubrey of putting "prurient sex" in the program
Route 66 to boost ratings, and confronted him with the "bosoms, broads, and fun" quotation from a memorandum by CBS executive Howard G. Barnes following a meeting with the program's producers. Aubrey denied saying the phrase. He said that people in the business often shorthanded "wholesome, pretty girls" as "broads", and "attractive" as "bosoms". Another memorandum summarizing the same meeting, written by
Screen Gems executive
William Dozier, wrote: "There is not enough sex in the programs. Neither lead has gotten involved even for a single episode with the normal wants of a young man, namely to get involved with a girl or even to kiss her". In his book
Only You, Dick Daring!,
Merle Miller described how he spent five-and-a-half months trying to make a show with CBS for the 1963–64 season based on an idea of Aubrey's about a
county agent. Aubrey would walk out of meetings without offering any constructive comments on Miller's program and the 19 rewrites he did of the pilot episode. Aubrey's success caused him instability and he became more arrogant. He was abusive to the network's affiliates, advertisers, producers, and talent. Friends including producers
Dick Dorso of
United Artists,
Martin Ransohoff of
Filmways, and
David Susskind, who had each sold several series to CBS, found themselves excluded. "He's a friend of mine, but he cut me stone cold last year", Susskind said. "I was hanging there with my pants down, wondering what I'd tell the stockholders". Gossip columnist
Liz Smith, who worked at CBS, called him a "a mean, hateful, truly scary, bad, outré guy". Studio executive
Sherry Lansing, a close friend of Aubrey's for two decades, told the
Los Angeles Times in 1986:Jim is different. He does his own dirty work. Jim is one of those people who are willing to say, "I didn't like your movie." Directness is disarming to people who are used to sugar-coating. It's tough for people who need approval to see somebody who doesn't. Myths and legends begin to surround that kind of person. was forced out by Aubrey in 1960. Frankenheimer found a new career as a film director, for which he is now arguably best known, Aubrey also rescheduled
Jack Benny's long-running series without consulting him. Benny, a friend of Paley's since luring the comedian to CBS in 1948, objected to his new
lead-in on Tuesdays for the 1963–64 season,
Petticoat Junction, instead of the previous season's
The Red Skelton Hour. Then in the summer of 1963, Aubrey told Benny his show would not be renewed at the end of the forthcoming season; Aubrey thought Benny was no longer current. "You're through, old man", Aubrey told him. Benny took his show back to NBC, but ended the show after only one season, proving Aubrey's point if not his tactics. Aubrey also had disagreements with
Red Skelton,
Danny Thomas,
Judy Garland, and
Arthur Godfrey.
Alleged favoritism Allegations of favoritism in purchasing programs were made against Aubrey. His friend
Keefe Brasselle,who had minor film roles in the 1940s and 1950s, and met Aubrey when they both worked at KNXT, had no experience as a producer. "A 1965 edition of
George Raft", said David Susskind, as there were also rumors Brasselle had ties to
the Mafia. Nevertheless, Aubrey scheduled three shows from Brasselle's Richelieu Productions for the
1964–65 season, without pilot episodes. The shows were
The Baileys of Balboa, a sitcom with
Paul Ford; the newspaper drama
The Reporter; and
The Cara Williams Show, a sitcom starring Williams. Brasselle would personally supervise
The Reporter, shot in New York City. Costs skyrocketed on Brasselle's shows; after nine episodes,
The Reporter was $450,000 over-budget, and ran only for three months.
Baileys ran until April 1965, and
Cara Williams finished after one season; all three shows were commercial failures, although Oulahan and Lambert described them as "no better and no worse than most of the new shows". When Aubrey was later asked why he aired three untested programs, he responded with "arrogance, I guess". In his book
The Other Glass Teat, media critic
Harlan Ellison alleges that a Mafia don had put out a contract on Aubrey for beating his daughter during consensual sex at a
Las Vegas hotel, and that Brasselle demanded the shows in exchange for his using his own Mafia connections to smooth things over. Aubrey's critics acknowledged that he could be charming and went to great lengths to please performers. To keep
Jackie Gleason happy when he moved his show from New York City to
Miami Beach in 1963, Aubrey had CBS buy Gleason's $350,000 futuristic home in
Peekskill, New York;
The New York Times called it "a
flying saucer-like cabana". The network was still trying to sell it years later.
News and sports Aubrey disliked not having control of the autonomous
CBS News and fought constantly with its officials, especially its chief,
Fred W. Friendly, who was just as demanding and controlling as Aubrey. Friendly felt Aubrey was unconcerned with public affairs; in his memoir,
Due to Circumstances Beyond Our Control, Friendly recounts one budget meeting in which Aubrey talked at length about the high costs of airing news, which could be cheaply replaced with entertainment programs. However, Paley supported the news and protected Friendly's division from Aubrey's proposed budget cuts. In 1962, Aubrey ordered that there would be fewer specials, entertainment and news, because he felt interruptions to the schedule alienated viewers by disrupting their routine viewing, sending them to the competition. Friendly resented this move. In the fall of 1962,
CBS Reports, a news-documentary program on Wednesdays was blamed by the press for the sharp drop-off in the ratings of
The Beverly Hillbillies, the comedy had been number one in its first two seasons, but dropped to 18th when
CBS Reports became the
Hillbillies lead-in for its third season.
Hillbillies had aired at 9:00 before moving up a half hour in 1964; CBS responded by moving
CBS Reports to Mondays. On May 9, 1963, Aubrey warned the network's affiliates the high cost of rights for professional sports could price them off television; nevertheless, in January 1964 CBS agreed to pay $28.2 million to air the games of the
National Football League for two years, 17 games each season. "We know how much these games mean to the viewing audience, our affiliated stations, and the nation's advertisers", Aubrey told
The New York Times. In April 1964, he agreed to extend the deal for another year for $31.8 million. In the spring of 1964,
The New York Times Magazine declared CBS "for the 10th year in a row [...] was the undisputed champion of the television networks". An analyst said CBS was "almost comparable to what
General Motors did in autos or what
General Electric [did] in electrical equipment". Aubrey offered no explanation following his dismissal, nor did Stanton or Paley give an explicit reason.
The New York Times Magazine wrote, "Aubrey was torpedoed at last [...] by a combination of his imperiousness, the ratings drop, and a vivid after-hours life culminating in a raucous Miami Beach party—details of which no one ever agrees on—the weekend he was fired". Aubrey said, "I don't pretend to be any saint. If anyone wants to indict me for liking pretty girls, I'm guilty". Skye Aubrey said that her family broke up because Aubrey stayed in New York while Phyllis Thaxter was working in Hollywood; while "women were practically throwing themselves at him ... Putting business and career first broke up the Family. He was all into business". Oulahan and Lambert wrote that after his divorce in 1962, Aubrey was able to "live the high life around New York, Hollywood, Miami, and in Europe with such companions as Judy Garland,
Julie Newmar,
Rhonda Fleming—and with other dolls who were only faces and figures, not names". His parties and dating history became widely discussed.
Paul Rosenfield of the
Los Angeles Times described the temptation of gossip columnists to write about Aubrey, but the material about him could not be verified—"tempting, but mostly unprintable". Oulahan and Lambert wrote: "This much is certain: John Schneider will never exercise the broad programming power his free-wheeling predecessor held. It is doubtful whether anyone in television ever will again". ==Post-CBS career (1966–1968)==