CBS CEO Les Moonves spoke at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch media conference today, and talked briefly about CBS News.
“The status of CBS News right now is much higher than it was two or three years ago, Scott Pelley’s ratings are up significantly from what his predecessor’s, whose name I will not mention,” Moonves said, referring to Katie Couric. “The morning show is significantly, qualitatively a better show, the ratings are up a little bit. [the news divison] is in profit.”
Moonves was also asked about the long-rumored deal between CNN and CBS News.
“Are you referring to one [network] in particular that is having some struggles over there?” Moonves quipped in response to a question about the talks. “At the time it didn’t seem to make sense, economically. It is tough to do joint ventures with big media companies, are there shared services that could be done? Probably.
For any of these troubled networks, they can reach out and we will take their calls,” he added.