• by Wayne Friedman , May 24, 2006

For CBS there will be more selling, but perhaps very little buying.

That's what Les Moonves, chairman/CEO, speaking at Morgan Stanley's annual Media & Communications conference in Washington, told investors. A day after the media company said it would sell its Paramount Parks division to private investor Cedar Fair L.P. for $1.24 billion in cash, CBS now says it will put 32 to 35 smaller-market radio stations up for sale--which comes to around 20 percent of its 179 CBS radio station portfolio.

But Moonves said the money wouldn't be used to buy up other media properties. Instead, CBS was going to return the money to its shareholders. That means purchasing open-market shares of CBS to raise the outstanding shares of the company.

"Don't look at CBS to make a major acquisition," Moonves says.

Although there is now interest in the growing Spanish-language broadcaster Univision, from other media companies, CBS won't make a move here either--discounting previous rumors of CBS' interest. Moonves said flatly: It's "too complicated, too expensive--we're not interested." CBS and other would-be acquirers would need to address the Federal rules concerning TV-station ownership. Any potential acquisition would mean that companies such as CBS and Walt Disney Co., for example, would need to sell off some TV stations.

Paramount Parks has five locations: Paramount Canada's Wonderland in Toronto, Ontario; Paramount's Carowinds in Charlotte, N.C.; Paramount's Great America in Santa Clara, Calif.; Paramount's Kings Dominion in Richmond, Va.; and Paramount's Kings Island in Cincinnati.

In addition, the Parks division has the Star Trek Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton, which is included in the sale. But the CBS Television City at the MGM Grand, the consumer research operation that CBS runs with Nielsen Media Research, is not part of the sale.