ECONOMY, TAKEOVER BID CITED : CBS NEWS PINK-SLIPS 74, CUTS 51 JOBS

Seventy-four CBS News employees, most of them producers and writers, learned Thursday that they are being laid off for reasons that include a “listless economy” and the huge debt that CBS, Inc., incurred in defeating Ted Turner’s takeover of the corporation.

CBS News has a staff of about 1,300 people. The cuts, which affected domestic and foreign staff members, had been expected for at least a month, but were 26 fewer than had been rumored.

The ax fell three weeks after ABC, Inc., citing an “uncertain economy” this year and a need to reduce costs, laid off 350 of its 13,000 employees.

NBC plans no job reductions, a network spokesman said Thursday.

The CBS News cuts were part of an overall effort by CBS, Inc., to trim its 30,000-member work force by year’s end. The parent company spent almost $1 billion to fight off a hostile takeover attempt by Turner, the Atlanta-based cable-TV entrepreneur.

No specific corporate-wide number of job cuts has been set, a CBS spokesman said. He said that this decision--and any announcement of layoffs--is being left to each of CBS’ 17 divisions, which include news, sports, entertainment, broadcasting, records and publishing.

As part of its cost-cutting effort, CBS offered on Sept. 3 what it called “a very attractive early retirement option” to 2,000 employes who are 55 or older and have at least 10 years of pension-service credit. They have until Nov. 1 to decide whether to take it.

CBS News said that 51 other jobs are being eliminated through voluntary early retirement by people holding those jobs or by not filling vacancies. The job eliminations include two vice-president positions.

Although a CBS News spokesman said he didn’t know which staff members were laid off, at least two producers at the troubled “CBS Morning News” reportedly were axed and another producer reluctantly opted for early retirement.

Sources also said that New York-based correspondent Liz Trotta got pink-slipped, as did Middle East correspondent Larry Pintak, and that two CBS News veterans now primarily working in radio--Neil Strawser and Dallas Townsend--decided to take early retirement.

The layoffs affected every CBS News department and program, including the “CBS Evening News,” the spokesman said. “There were no sacred cows.”

CBS News President Edward M. Joyce, in a staff memo made public in New York, said that the job cuts reluctantly were made “because of a number of unanticipated adverse financial circumstances, many of which are already known to you.

“They include in part the consequences of successfully resisting the (Turner) takeover attempt, a listless economy and a marked softness in the advertising marketplace for the balance of this year and 1986.

“As a result, we must reduce our costs in every area, including, unhappily, our most important one--people. It is small comfort, but nonetheless the literal truth that this action is vital to the future strength and viability of CBS News. There was and is no alternative.”

Despite the bad news for 74 of the division’s employes, there was a ray of sunshine Thursday--at least for CBS News executives.

A spokeswoman said anchorman-correspondent Charles Osgood, noted for his whimsical poetry, has signed a new “long-term” contract with CBS News. ABC News had been wooing Osgood, who joined CBS in 1971.