Moonves Regrets Letting Howard Stern Get Away

Les Moonves

CBS President and CEO Leslie Moonves gave the keynote address at Variety‘s annual Dealmakers breakfast Wednesday, and addressed key issues facing his business, ranging from the future of the company post-Sumner Redstone, the status of rights for the NFL and his feelings on the movie “Truth,” which depicted the events around a flawed “60 Minutes” report about former president George W. Bush.

In a Q&A conducted by Variety Co-Editor-in-Chief Claudia Eller, Moonves talked about the speculation swirling about the fate of Viacom and CBS in the wake of executive chairman Redstone’s failing health. “I don’t think Viacom and CBS should be reunited,” he said. “There’s no benefit for either company to be joined.” He also dismissed any notion that he would pursue buying CBS himself. “It’s not something that’s on my radar,” he said.

Howard Stern

On the subject of NFL rights, he said while the Sunday package is profitable, the Thursday night rights have yet to cross that threshold. But he said he’s still going to pursue them given the support it offers to the rest of CBS’ lineup.

He acknowledged, though, he’s made some missteps over the course of his career at CBS, including giving up the rights to Charlie Brown (“ABC has been kicking us for it every holiday season since”) as well as letting Howard Stern go to radio.

“Once again, we couldn’t match the money,” he said. “Sirius offered him $100 million a year, but Howard Stern really was the face of terrestrial radio. Even though he went on to David Letterman wearing an ‘I Hate Les Moonves’ T-shirt, I was sorry to lose him. It changed the face of the radio business.”

Howard Stern has been a key piece of Sirius XM Holdings' content since October 2004 when he agreed to join Sirius Satellite Radio. At the time, Sirius had more than 600,000 subscribers while its much larger rival, XM, had more than 2 million. At the time, Sirius agreed to pay Stern's company the startling sum of approximately $100 million per year for five years.

When Stern's contract was renewed for another five years, his workload was reduced from four days per week to three and the annual cost was estimated to drop to $80 million per year. As we approach the end of the year, Stern's contract is once again about to expire, and this time he has been unusually quiet.

In the past, Stern has publicly discussed his business dealings on his show.