CBS President and CEO Les Moonves says he hasn’t "felt this good" about his company since it split from Viacom in 2006, isn’t interested in acquiring anything, unless a large market TV station becomes available, and doesn’t want to divest anything at the moment.
"Do I want to get rid of any of my children? No," he told an audience of analysts on Wednesday at the 26th annual Sanford Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference.
But when asked what might be the most likely thing he would look to trim to improve the bottom line if he had to, Moonves said maybe some mid-market radio stations and smaller market TV stations.
As far as acquisitions, he said he has "no intent to acquire anything. There’s nothing out there that I’m dying to have. We feel we are complete."
As always at these types of sessions, Moonves touches on a diverse range of topics about CBS Corp., and this one was no different.
On the current broadcast television upfront negotiations, he said CBS would more than likely sell about 80 percent of its primetime ad inventory this year, about 15 percent more than last year, primarily because pricing is significantly up this year, while last year the networks had to sell at price decreases.
"There’s been a great adjustment in the marketplace," he said, adding that CBS has traditionally had the most stabile schedule and — in a slap at NBC and its failed Jay Leno experiment earlier this season — added, "And we don’t quite have the turmoil at 10 p.m."
Moonves said CBS’ goal to bring in $250 million annually in retransmission fees by 2012 from cable operators who want to carry the network’s programming "is playing out in that ballpark," adding that this total "might be a bit conservative."
He defended ESPN, which has taken heat for getting about $4 per subscriber from cable operators, calling it "the Gold Standard" of cable sports networks.
"What we’re saying is cable operators should pay for the networks that people want to watch," Moonves said.
The CBS exec said the company is looking into numerous ways to try to monetize its content online and in other alternative distribution methods because "right now we are getting pennies on a dollar for advertising on our shows online. We are looking at a hundred different models."
Moonves acknowledged having discussions with Apple about finding a way to put CBS’ TV content on its new iPad but said an agreement could not be reached. "We have had discussions with everyone. Apple, Google, Yahoo."
When asked if Apple were a friend or foe to network television, Moonves said it is a friend.
"I think there’s been a psychological change over the past few years," he said, adding that the content providers and technology companies "are finding that we can’t live without one another."
Moonves also said CBS Corp. will continue making movies under the CBS Films moniker, despite the lack of commercial success of the first few. "We will continue to make three to five a year," he said. "Each one costs us $30 million. We have limited risk."
And he said the company saves lots of money by being able to promote the movies on its owned radio stations and billboards.
"We took in $13 billion in revenue last year," Moonves said, adding that making a few movies is not going to break the bank.
