Moonves Talks About Stories & Demos

Even as Les Moonves “takes meetings on the search for radio star Howard Stern’s replacements, looks for a successor to just-departed Fred Reynolds, and bones up on all the companies now reporting to him,” he is taking a hands-on role in the post-Dan Rather reinvention of the CBS Evening News,” Phil Rosenthal writes — “partly because he feels it’s important to the company, partly for fun.”

“I’ve always been a news junkie,” Moonves said at the TCA Press Tour last week. “I think judging the [news] people, the stories, the style is very creative. It’s still about telling stories with the right people telling them.” There’s that “storytelling” statement again…

> On demographics: “Right now, anybody that [talks about] going for 18- to 34-year-olds on the evening news is dumb. That’s the `Central Park West’ theory,” he said. “No, you shoot for 45-year-olds first.”