CBS Chief Discusses New Media, Retransmission at NAB

LAS VEGAS: Speaking at the NAB Show in Las Vegas, Leslie Moonves, the president and CEO of CBS Corporation, weighed in on government intervention in disputes with cable operators, spectrum allocation and the impact of new technologies on the company’s "bread-and-butter" business of network television and syndication.

In conversation with Gordon Smith, the CEO of NAB, Moonves opened the session stressing his belief in the TV broadcasting model. "When one of our competitors at another major network kept talking about, ‘The model’s broken,’ I said, ‘No, no, no.’ There’s a difference between a failed programming executive and the model being broken," Moonves quipped. "We are broadcasters, I love being a broadcaster, it’s the greatest business on earth."

Moonves later stated that the FCC should "stay out of" the retransmission disputes that broadcasters are having with pay-TV platforms, and noted that broadcast networks are still not receiving their fair share. He used as an example USA Network, whose top shows include repeats of NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles. "They are getting paid more than we are for the originals. There’s something wrong with that. There’s no other business in the world where the money doesn’t follow the eyeballs."

The CBS chief also talked about the importance of spectrum for the network. "Spectrum is our lifeblood. We are striving continually to put on better quality programs. To put on a golf tournament where you can see the golf ball in the azaleas, that takes a lot of HD. That takes up a lot of spectrum, but it’s a lot of spectrum watched by tens and tens of millions of people."

Asked what his greatest concerns are, Moonves responded, "Clearly its technology. We are not the dinosaur people would like to present us as being, That perception has changed. [The issue is,] which content deal do we make? The good news about all that’s out there, the iPad, Hulu, Netflix, what they all need is our content. Our decision is, how do we get paid for this content without cannibalizing our core? Our bread and butter, broadcasting—it’s network television number one, number two is our syndication market—those two revenue streams are far greater than any of these new devices."