• by Wayne Friedman , March 2, 2006

One day after CBS sought legal means in recovering several hundred million dollars from Howard Stern and Sirius Satellite Radio, CBS--in a different kind of payback--is setting its sights on grabbing a similar amount from cable operators.

CBS Chairman and CEO Les Moonves expects to get "hundreds of millions of dollars" from retransmission-consent deals reached by the CBS corporately owned stations. Those stations reach 60 million households.

He said CBS would strike one major deal to be announced in the next several weeks. CBS-owned stations--those for its CBS network as well as its upcoming CW network--would get a piece of these revenues from cable operators.

The expected deal comes from CBS being freed up--as an independent media company--to pursue its own affiliate plans with cable operators. Before this year, as part of the old Viacom Inc., CBS's cable dealings were tied up with Viacom's MTV Networks. When MTV Network and CBS were part of Viacom before this year, Viacom, as a company, got MTV Networks' carriage for new cable channels rather than cash.

"Cable operators are going to have to pay for our signals," Moonves told conferees at the annual Bear Stearns Media Conference in Florida on Tuesday night. For months, Moonves has talked about CBS getting money from cable affiliates--that cable operators have been getting a free ride from broadcast networks. Typically, cable operators pay for networks such as ESPN, TNT, and USA Network--which in return give operators local advertising time.

On Tuesday, CBS Radio filed suit for several hundred million dollars against its former radio star Howard Stern for promoting his new employer, Sirius, while being a CBS Radio employee.