Les Moonves - AllThingsD

President and CEO
CBS

As president and chief executive officer of CBS, Les Moonves oversees all operations of the company, including the CBS Television Network, the CW (a joint venture between CBS and Warner Bros.), CBS Television Stations, CBS Paramount Network Television, CBS Television Distribution Group, Showtime, CBS Radio, CBS Records, CBS Outdoor, Simon & Schuster, CBS Interactive, CSTV Networks, Inc., CBS Consumer Products, CBS Home Entertainment and CBS Feature Films. That's a lot of CBS's, all of which must move fast-forward into the digital arena to thrive. Prior to the Viacom separation in 2005, Moonves served as co-president and co-chief operating officer of Viacom and chairman of CBS, overseeing all of Viacom's domestic and international broadcast television operations, its radio division and outdoor advertising operations. He joined CBS from Warner Bros. Television, where he served as president, and was also an executive at 20th Century Fox Television. And, best of all, the graduate of Bucknell University also pursued an acting career early on.

Posts With Les Moonves

CBS May Produce New Show for Netflix

Peter Kafka in Media on February 15 at 4:19 pm PT

Big Media is making lots of money selling reruns to digital players like Netflix. Now it’s starting to help the new guys make their own stuff, too.

Netflix Gets “Gossip Girl” — And a Time Warner Deal

Peter Kafka in Media on October 13, 2011 at 10:02 am PT

Turns out Jeff Bewkes is happy to work with the “Albanian Army” after all — he and Les Moonves have a deal to sell more reruns to Reed Hastings.

Netflix Adds More Disney/ABC Shows–But Not the Ones You Missed Last Night

Peter Kafka in Media on December 8, 2010 at 9:08 am PT

A familiar trade for Netflix: It gets more content for its Web streaming service, but agrees to wait longer to show off some of it. Want to watch TV shows that ran yesterday? Go somewhere else.

CBS's "60 Minutes" Revisits Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg (And BoomTown Takes Back "Toddler CEO" Title)

Kara Swisher in News on December 1, 2010 at 3:49 pm PT

This Sunday, the CBS news magazine “60 Minutes” returns to Facebook after several years to check in on co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. In the first interview by correspondent Lesley Stahl in early 2008, Zuckerberg’s social networking empire was much smaller, beset by a series of management snafus and mired in yet another privacy controversy. Plus, he was more than a lot more awkward. Fast-forward to today: Zuckerberg rules one of the most powerful tech companies in the world and BoomTown dubs him a prodigy! The worm has officially turned.

Viral Video: "The View" Vs. "The Talk"

Kara Swisher in News on October 20, 2010 at 12:34 am PT

It’s a smackdown of chit-chatting ladies, as CBS’s “The Talk” debuted this week, in an attempt to grab audience from the powerhouse daytime ABC talk show “The View.” It’ll be hard, since those are some tough women on “The View,” which recently was in the spotlight after Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar walked off the set in the middle of a segment with Fox News cable pundit Bill O’Reilly, after he impugned Muslims.

CBS' Comcast Deal Clears the Deck for Hulu. Maybe Apple, Too.

Peter Kafka in Media on August 2, 2010 at 3:15 pm PT

The 10-year carriage deal that CBS and Comcast announced today is all about good old fashioned TV, delivered via cable pipes, to be consumed on your 42-inch plasma. But the deal could also give Les Moonves and company the ability to move forward on less conventional Web TV deals, too.

CBS: We’ll Cut iTunes Prices for Some Shows [UPDATE]

Peter Kafka in Media on February 18, 2010 at 2:49 pm PT

Steve Jobs’s effort to cut prices on TV shows sold on iTunes has found at least partial backing from CBS. CEO Les Moonves says the broadcaster will mark down the price on some of its shows from $1.99 to 99 cents. “There are certain shows that will be sold on Apple for 99 cents,” Moonves said today, adding, however, that details have not been worked out.

CBS Digital Boss Quincy Smith’s Not-Quite Exit Interview: “Hulu’s a Great Service. That’s Part of the Problem.”

Peter Kafka in Media on October 28, 2009 at 1:31 pm PT

The man who helped shape CBS’s standalone Web video strategy explains himself, for the record.

CBS Digital Boss Quincy Smith Plans His Next Deal: His Own M&A Shop

Peter Kafka in Media on May 11, 2009 at 4:45 am PT

Quincy Smith, who guided CBS through a series of big transactions during the Web 2.0 era, is planning his next deal: a move to start his own boutique investment bank or consultancy. Smith is still running the CBS Interactive unit, a job he took in November 2006. But he has been telling associates that he plans to start his own company, possibly as soon as this summer. Other people close to Smith say that his departure isn’t imminent and doesn’t have a fixed date and that he’s still working closely with CBS CEO Les Moonves. Statement from CBS spokesman Dana McClintock: “We decline to comment on rumor and speculation.”

Welcome to Lucky D7: Still Gambling on the Digital Future

Kara Swisher in D7 on May 4, 2009 at 12:26 am PT

Incredibly, this is the seventh year of the D: All Things Digital conference. We feel very lucky to get here, especially in the midst of what our own site’s Digital Daily scribe, John Paczkowski, has so perfectly dubbed the “econalypse.” Ironically, Walt Mossberg and I planned to launch the very first conference in the middle of the last major downturn for tech, in 2001. But, in the carnage of the Web 1.0 meltdown, we actually held off for two years, with our first D gathering taking place in 2003.