• by Wayne Friedman , January 11, 2007

CBS is in negotiations with three cable operators to sell its programming under retransmission-consent deals, according to Les Moonves, president and CEO of CBS Corp. He announced the net's plans to investors and analysts at CitiGroup's media conference in Las Vegas, but did not identify the companies.

He said that long-term, these deals will "materially affect our numbers in 2009. Every single nickel goes right to the bottom line. It will be significant." Moonves predicts the network will reap "hundreds of millions of dollars."

For cable deals, CBS could get "anywhere from 50 cents a subscriber." As a comparison, ESPN, as a top cable network, gets around $2.50 a subscriber.

Concerning digital entertainment, Moonves said--as he has in the past--that consumers are used to getting content free on the Internet. That means CBS will most likely continue to do deals with advertisers to keep content free.

For example, three years ago, when the NCAA tournament was offered to consumers as part of a paid-subscription package, CBS made $250,000. But last year, when it moved to a free, ad-supported Internet event, it pulled in $4.5 million. This year, he says, CBS is on track to do at least $8 million, if not $10 million, for the NCAA webcasts.

Moonves also reasserted his belief that CBS would be better served by partnering with Internet companies, rather then buying companies. "We are intending on investing in a lot of places. I'd rather partner with YouTube then spend $1.6 billion to buy them."

CBS Corp. has mega-cash on hand. This past year--its first as a public company after the split with Viacom--CBS gave dividends to shareholders three times. The plan for this year may be different. "We are looking at a stock buyback plan," he says.

Regarding DVR viewing of CBS shows, Moonves said: "Last May [during the upfront], we lost the battle with advertisers. But that's going to change this May. We are going to get paid for those commercials [on DVRs]."