TV & VIDEO - July 1, 1987

CBS executives have threatened to uproot the Black Rock--the network’s New York headquarters--and move it to New Jersey unless New York Mayor Edward I. Koch gives the network the same tax breaks it has offered NBC to stay in Gotham, according to the New York Daily News in Tuesday’s editions. The city has offered to subsidize NBC’s new headquarters in Manhattan at a reported saving of up to $80 million, and CBS wants in on the game. “We said, ‘Listen, we should not be penalized for staying where we are,’ ” George Schweitzer, CBS vice president of communications, told the newspaper. “We cannot allow our prime competitor to receive a major financial advantage.” The network may take its 5,900 employees elsewhere, perhaps New Jersey, if it doesn’t get such breaks, he said.