Some members of the CBS board initially sided with Mr. Moonves after accusations were made

In July, when The New Yorker published an article in which six women accused Mr. Moonves of sexually inappropriate behavior, a couple of CBS board members were not moved by it.

“We are going to stay in this meeting until midnight if we need to until we get an agreement that we stand 100 percent behind our C.E.O. and there will be no change in his status,” said one board member, William Cohen, a former congressman, senator and defense secretary, The Times reported.

Arnold Kopelson, a producer of the Oscar-winning film “Platoon,” told his fellow board members: "I don’t care if 30 more women come forward and allege this kind of stuff. Les is our leader, and it wouldn’t change my opinion of him.”

The board did not discipline Mr. Moonves until September. Mr. Kopelson died in October, and the company’s board has since been largely reconstituted.

READ MORE:

The network’s crown jewel has a track record of misconduct

“60 Minutes,” the Sunday newsmagazine series in its 51st season, is the crown jewel of CBS News.

But the program has a long track record of sexual harassment and misconduct. The Times revealed last week that CBS was still paying a woman who had accused the show's founder, Don Hewitt, of sexual abuse. CBS pays her an annual stipend of $75,000 a year, and has offered her further payments in exchange for her silence. To date, CBS has paid her more than $5 million. Mr. Hewitt died in 2009.

Jeff Fager, who succeeded Mr. Hewitt as the show’s executive producer, was fired in September after he threatened a CBS News reporter who was looking into whether he had engaged in sexually inappropriate behavior with colleagues. According to the draft report, the investigators said Mr. Fager had been justifiably fired and concluded that he had engaged in inappropriate behavior.