Les Moonves — Charlie Rose Interview

From our studios in New York City, this is Charlie Rose. Les Moonves is here. He is chairman and CEO of CBS. Eight years ago, he joined a network that in his own words was in shambles. He is responsible for turning the Tiffany network around by bringing in such hit shows as Survivor and CSI. He is considered one of television's most powerful executives. CBS has been on the air for 75 years and will celebrate with a three-hour special airing this Sunday evening. I am pleased to welcome Les Moonves back to this table. And of course, I have to say that in fact I worked for him over at CBS, 60 Minutes II. Thank you, thank you. Tell me about the 75th anniversary. What are you celebrating? How are you going to do it? And how do you cram 75 years of broadcast history into three hours?

All right. When you look back, take a look at this. This is the man who founded CBS, William Paley. Take a look at this clip about the guy who 75 years ago started, bought a series of radio stations and turned it into the Tiffany network.

In September of 1928, 26-year-old William Paley, the son of a successful cigar merchant, acquired a string of 16 radio stations to form the Columbia Broadcasting System. Through his singular drive and limitless imagination, he spent the next six decades creating the standard for which all broadcast entertainment soon followed. He brought stars like Lucille Ball, Jack Benny, Red Skelton, and Jackie Gleason to Hollywood and turned them into household names. The stunning success of those early shows paved the way for the instant classics CBS will forever be remembered by: Ed Sullivan, I Love Lucy, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Mary Tyler Moore, All in the Family. And of course, 'How you doing, Henry, man? You know, you're making selections that are going to have an influence on 20, 30, 40, 50 million people. Something very exciting about that. And when something works because you had a good idea.' Who is great, uncompromising in his vision. William Paley's dream of transforming CBS into the Tiffany network soon came true, and even in the twilight of his career, Paley's commitment to making good television never faltered. 'It's fun, it's challenging, and it's part of that spirit. You have a competitive spirit. I catch that. You get so much fun and satisfaction when you win, and it gives you such heartaches and such depressions when you lose. That's part of the fun of the business. You're always reaching for something new.'

Think about this. Those are footsteps you're following.

You are a former actor, which we've talked about on this program. You are a guy who was successful at Lorimar, then at Warner Brothers as a television executive, providing programs. What was it that made you take an offer to go to CBS and run programming?

Yeah. When you look at each year, take me through the process of shaping this season. Okay? How you decided on what you had and what were the risks you were taking this season.

Well, most audiences follow their favorite program. Yet moving from Monday to Friday, they don't follow. If it has enough of a following and you let them know that it's going, in other words, you let them know where it is...

What's the... if you look at this season, CSI has had an offshoot, CSI: Miami, correct? Is that the most prominent trend of this primetime season?

Whoever knew forensics could be so exciting? Yes, forensics would be the sexiest thing. By the way, an interesting trend now: forensics is taught at many colleges because of the TV shows.

Here's a fascinating story. Survivor, probably more than any other choice you made, has been the most important in your eight-year career. Would you say that or not?

Has that trend continued for you in terms of being able to make some inroads in this idea that CBS skewed older than everybody else?

You have made this point, and I believe this point, and I want to understand it: that you have a lot more buying power, you as an individual, than your 19-year-old son. Absolutely. Why? Why do we pay more attention to your 19-year-old son than your age group?

You guys watch each other's performances. When you see the success of American Idol, you have to pay attention to it. You question and you have to say, can we create our own American Idol? Television is very imitative. Everybody, a big hit Survivor started a trend in reality shows. Same thing with The Millionaire. The only problem is most of the imitators are not nearly as good as the original. So at the end of the day, there were 20 shows similar to Survivor, but they weren't Survivor and they died. So we repeat that. We do copy each other and hope to hopefully tag on to that success. I'm fascinated by what people have, that gut. You know, is it gut? Bruckheimer does he have gut? This is a guy who brought you CSI. He's a guy who's had hit movies, Pirates of the Caribbean and something else I've forgotten what it was, for the television shows. How do you explain that? Is it because he is organized? Is it because he has brilliant insights?

On my show, the reason was William Petersen, CSI star of CSI. But here was a guy that you have believed in for a while and looked for a vehicle for. Correct. You know, do you have a list of actors you've seen through the years and you say, 'I'll see the right property for this guy'? And there are a handful of those guys. How many? Is it a handful?

What's harder: knowing what actor to use and what part, or knowing what product, what story idea, what series idea will work?

What failed for you this season?

Law & Order is the most valuable franchise in television. I might argue with that. CSI? No, you're right. Law & Order is amazingly successful for NBC. There are three of them. That's very important. Just like there are two CSIs. There's only one Friends. How do you explain it?

Dick Wolf, from what I understand, is talking about Law & Order for years. And we're talking about a CSI maybe someplace else. But you said to me on this program on an earlier appearance that you might have made the same mistake by abusing the Millionaire franchise. That's exactly right. Clearly made a mistake. That's right. And you might have made the same mistake there.

When you look at Bruckheimer as a producer, and you look at Petersen as an actor, is it easier to sell television today to producers and performers?

But is there anything about Bruckheimer that made him more likely to succeed in television than some other film producer who has an equally strong track record?

The guy who created CSI was on this show. He said that was the most amazing thing. He said that Bruckheimer brought a quality and a look they might not have achieved otherwise.

What do you see down the road? You have a green light to stuff for next season? Not yet. Not yet. We're still in development. But we're in the process of developing the next hundred scripts which will turn into those next 20 pilots. And what does your gut tell you might be where we might be going? For example, are you surprised by the longevity of Survivor?

That's because there's no talent that's come along?

Tell me where you think outside the box. What's his name? Barbara is thinking outside the box when we did Fail Safe with George Clooney, doing a live presentation which hadn't been done in 30 years. That was thinking outside the box. Something George wanted to do. Exactly. George came to us with this idea of doing a live drama like they did in the old Playhouse 90 nights. Didn't work? Throwback? Did it work? It worked brilliantly. It was good. It was good work. Well, in every dimension. It worked well in terms of audiences, very good. And the production was fabulous. And I have to tell you, as the head of the network, I was so excited that night. You know, you're there and the same guy on television forgets a line. You know, it's not like David Letterman or anything like that. This is the real deal. And it was so exciting when we pulled it off. It was great. It was great. So that was thinking outside the box. As I said, some of these reality shows are thinking outside the box. Survivor was a concept that was foreign to television. Even when you take a show like ER, when that first came out, that was thinking outside the box. It was a hospital show, but stylistically unbelievably different. CSI, believe me, different because of pacing, because of the shortness of scenes, because the number of stories going on simultaneously and the time frame they did it in. It wasn't your traditional standard hospital show. CSI used techniques never before used on network television: seeing a bullet going inside somebody's body with the detail that happens. It's truly phenomenal, very exciting.

Do you watch much television?

There are many people who will say that the people who are doing the most outside the box are the people like Chris Albrecht at HBO. Now they have more freedom. They do, because they don't have to reach as large an audience. Right. They're on a paid channel. Commercial considerations, but they can do more things. And it says something, and I'm not sure what it says, about giving creativity an opportunity to flourish.

What about advertisers? Are they back? What I mean by that is advertising demand. In other words, there was a time that everybody in this television business was worried about a slackening of advertisers having the money to spend on this.

This may be obvious. What program on NBC would you like to steal? What program? Law & Order, more of course. Yes, because that's that franchise. Yes. Is that what? Their new season? Which one do you think you wish you had?

Were you offered it? Nope. Nope. Is the only thing changing about the means because you're number one? Right. You get offered the best generally? Or is that based on relationships and everything else?

You have Paramount. We have part of exactly. Family. ABC has Disney as part of their family. Right. So to a certain extent, you know, you will always give your sister companies sort of a wink and a first look. But you're not going to put on a bunch of bad programs just because they're produced by you.

But does this mean it's much tougher for Warner Brothers today to get a buyer for its programs because each of you guys now have your own? Not everyone. First of all, they have the WB. And number two, in a way, it becomes more advantageous for them since there's all this vertical integration.

I'm going to get to a lot of things. Let me do what's happening in magazine programming. 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes II, Dateline, 20/20 are staples. That's correct. That's correct. They're staples. We're very happy we have them. Audiences are declining somewhat on them across the board. Across the board. Because there's unusually much, right? Well, there are less of them as well. Right. There are less. Dateline, I think, at one time, I think they were like four on the schedule. Yeah, there may have been one more. I still think they are extremely important. They have lost some of their audience. And part of that is because of cable. You know, you're getting news from CNN and Fox News, and there are magazines all over the place. Look, 60 Minutes and 60 Minutes II, we're happy they're still both doing extremely well. I'm sure NBC is very happy with Dateline, which still does solid, as is 20/20. Now they are staples. They're part of a network fabric.

Are we as CBS different in terms of... you see Katie Couric now doing a lot of primetime, an occasional amount of primetime specials. Right. So Meredith Vieira does something on ABC the other night. But it's all about the most sensational story. Correct. Correct. There are stories that Katie will go after, that Barbara will go after, that Diane will go after. That CBS doesn't have that kind of person, nor would it fit into 60 Minutes. Right. Would it fit into the form?

Tell me what mistakes CBS made with the Jessica Lynch story when it had on the front page of the New York Times this memo. Right. Right.

When you saw it on the front page of the New York Times, was I embarrassed?

Don Hewitt. Don Hewitt, a legend in our business. Totally. When you look at the pantheon of heroes in television, exactly. Don Hewitt has been a legendary producer. Absolutely. Don has agreed to do what? Don is executive producer of 60 Minutes. The season next season, the show will be produced by, executive produced by Jeff Fager. Don will still be involved with the show. How will he be involved?

This hard for Don to take. I'm sure it's hard.

So where is this going to end? What do you mean? I mean, we expect Don will be happy that somehow we can work this out. I always want Don to be happy. Will he be happy? I don't know. It's going to be hard for him to give up being the guy who is running the show. And as of September of next season, it will be Jeff Fager. And by the way, Jeff is one of his disciples. Jeff Fager produced 60 Minutes II in the image of 60 Minutes. Totally. Totally. And Jeff Fager is not someone who is going to not show Don the appropriate respect. You know, he trained him. And you know, we all have a great deal of love and affection for Don. And you know, we want him around for a long, long time.

Things about human behavior. You say, 'I didn't mean to. I wish I'd stopped myself, but I did.' You know what makes him write those memos is what's made him a great producer. He's passionate and he loves it. And we respect that. As much as we would like him to go quietly at some point, you just can't worry about it anymore. That's exactly right. Exactly right. The morning television program, your morning show, is the fastest-growing morning program. Fastest-growing morning program. It is going up. It's up like 25% from a year ago. And it's doing extraordinarily well. We try to change up the form somewhat. We have four hosts, plus we have Dave Price. And it's doing great. It's lively. I think it's the best show we've put on the field in many, many years in the morning. And we're very pleased that we're becoming competitive in the morning. Why do you think that is? I mean, was it just what is it that made this, at long last, an effort that had a chance to succeed?

Letterman. Letterman seems to be very happy. He's going to be a father. Next, I'm not amazing. He's going to be a father fairly shortly. He seems to be very happy with it. I think his work is as good as it's ever been. He seems to be content. I think last time on the show, I had just gone through the... we talked about it. And he really appears to be very contented with the show. And you know, our relationship couldn't be better. When you think about... I mean, think more with me outside the box. I mean, that's... but you sit there. One thing we have here is consolidation. The best new evidence is NBC and Vivendi. Universal joins the family. That makes NBC more competitive. No, it makes it tougher. No question. In what way? Well, they now have a production company that is dedicated to supplying NBC first. They now have cable. They now have properties. Look, the Viacom cable operations have been unbelievably helpful for us. In what way? MTV would be one. It gives us so much promotional support. VH1. Nickelodeon supplies our Saturday morning programming for kids. We have BET. You know, it goes across. There's a lot of opportunities. You just signed a five-year contract with Viacom. Let's figure out what it would take for Les Moonves to leave CBS. What would be good enough to take you away from CBS?

I know we need to go through this. All right. So that's running a whole big flag. That's a good job. Yeah. Here's the deal. What would make you happy? This would... we could concoct this. Aren't you already listed in some of these surveys as the most powerful man in Hollywood? The entertainment... we can turn a wheel. The most powerful man in Hollywood. Yes. Would you want to run a movie studio? I don't know. I've been offered those things. I like what I do. I like what I do. I don't think that's particularly a better job. Do you want to be very, very, very rich? Do I want to be... by that, hundreds of millions? No. Surely not necessarily. You know, I'm very comfortable. I'm paid very well. Terry Semel, for example, is going to be even richer than he's ever been before. But Terry took a bold move to go to Yahoo. But you could have done that. You could have done what Terry Semel did. I could have. You know, maybe you had more guts than me. You know, I could have. Is there a new story here? Did it... he did it brilliantly. Now let's look at this. How are you not exercising your power in a way that could have an impact beyond just entertaining us? Are there things that you ought to be doing or could be doing that would make a difference?

Carroll O'Connor has since passed away. Reiner is alive. Reiner will be there. Yeah. When CBS takes an account of the greatest shows it's had, the 75th anniversary, All in the Family, M*A*S*H, Mary Tyler Moore, great, Lucy. Think about this. This is The Honeymooners, this is The Waltons, Dukes of Hazzard. I mean, all kinds of different shows, all great, part of the culture. Part of the culture. Yeah. And when you look, there are many people who would say things like the good old days, the golden years of talent. Right. Are you prepared to argue that television today is as good or better than it was at any time in its history? Or have we, because of competition, moved towards the lowest common denominator?

I'd be willing to argue the following: that what they best share is good writing. Correct. Yeah. Correct. Jerry Seinfeld, I think Jack Welch said this in his book. Jerry Seinfeld said this. And one of the... I think Jack said this on the show. They were willing to give Seinfeld, my facts may be off a little bit here, but I've got it about right, a hundred million dollars to take another year. Five million dollars an episode. Yeah. That's 100 million dollars. Jerry decoded that and he said no. And he said no because he said, 'I'm sitting here on Christmas Eve trying to write a script,' which he did. He was involved in everything. Right. Right. And he just said, 'The money doesn't make any difference anymore.' Right. Right. I am exhausted. I mean, and my point is, my point is that we forget how hard it is to be good, how hard it is to write great scripts. But there is a finite amount of... there's no question about it. You know, people have no idea, when you sit back at home, the amount of work that goes into doing a single episode of a single television show. We're forgetting The Andy Griffith Show. To my right, my brother from North Carolina. Exactly. Exactly. He's going to be there on Sunday night as well. You know, and as a matter of fact, the week after, we have an Andy Griffith Show special reunion. Will you bring them back? Where they are down there? They all got back together: Ron Howard and Don Knotts. And you know, these always do well. Don't think most of them... most of them don't know. Some don't. But most of them do. Absolutely. Absolutely. Which is nostalgia or what? Both. Both. A couple years ago, we did a Carol Burnett reunion. Right. The numbers were huge. But not only with people who were over 40 who knew the show. It was watched by 18 year olds. You know, so there was something about her and the fact that it's in syndication that brought people to television. Truly. True about Lucy. No question. No question. Seen somewhere on the face of the earth literally every moment during the day. There's no question about it. Speaking of that, American television overseas. Yes. Am I right in assuming American television overseas is not doing as well as it used to be? Or not?

The impact of cable. Yes. For years, people have said the networks are over. And every year, you guys at CBS, at NBC, and Fox, and Warner Brothers, just sort of say, 'Yeah, we're still the best game in town.' Yes. Still the only best place to get mass audiences. Where else can you get the number of people, 65 million people to watch the Super Bowl or the Academy Awards or the Survivor finale? The first year, watched by over 50 million people. Network television is still with us. More and more appointment television where everybody has their three or four favorites. You still do that appointment television. It happens a little bit. Absolutely. They're there. If you talk about Friends or Raymond or ER or CSI or The Practice, there are still people who set their clocks and say, 'I want to watch that show. I got to get home in time to watch that show.' What did you want to do in the last three or four years that you were too scared, too much at risk to pull the trigger?

I would assume this is also true about you. You are more sure, even though you never can be sure, with experience and being there in the seat, you are more confident in your instincts.

Jack Welch has been here. I have mentioned him several times here on my show, and Jeff Immelt as well. They own NBC, and now they own Universal. And what used to be the USA Network. And they talked about the possibility, as has ABC, as has CBS, of buying CNN. Yes. Is that going to happen? You think CNN will ever be sold by Time Warner to one of the networks?

Beyond valuation, I mean, there was an issue also of how can you work this thing out in terms of personnel and all that?

It's amazing when you think about Bill Paley going into cable. He wanted to go into cable, and what it would have meant. His instinct was to go there. Absolutely. And then they lost it. It didn't work as well as it might have been, and they didn't have the staying power to do it. That's correct. CBS News, where I work proudly. Dan Rather. If you know and talk to Dan, he's going strong. He would be in Baghdad tonight if there was a piece. In California, as we speak, covering the fires. Right. There you go. Madison on this. On the other hand, CBS News Evening News has been third. Yes. Tom Brokaw is leaving the anchor desk. We think. We think it's a long way between now and stepping down. That's right. Right. And we know the dawn, he would central, don't we? It's a hard chair to give up. It is. No question. And especially if you love it as much as Dan does. And yet, give it up. Yes. You know, you guys are not leaning on him to give it up. Not at all. Not at all. Because he's good. Yes. And you believe what about the fact that CBS can be number one in entertainment? What is not well operated? Evening news. That's correct. Look, it's not the top-rated evening news show. We still think it's going strong. We still think evening news is a good place to be. We still think Dan is the best guy in the business. We think he's the best guy. We haven't changed. Unless you got some other person or reason to change. Well, why did the Brokaw announcement come? Because of Brian Williams. Right. You know, Brian wanted that job and certainly deserves that job and served well. Rather got his job by the way in the first place. Well, that's correct. You know, that's what happens when there is other opportunity for people out there. And it sort of forced NBC to make an announcement about Williams and Brokaw. Would you have gone after Williams? Williams is very qualified. You know, he's a very good guy. He's a very confident professional. Yeah. Oh, you went after him for the morning show, didn't you? We talked to everybody, Charlie. You wouldn't believe the people we've spoken to. You've got to have a lot of doors. Look at Katie Couric. We tried to get her for 60 Minutes. We talked. Tried to get her for 60 Minutes. We've driven the truck over there. And I'm happy that we did. Another truck over from General Electric. But Don was talking to her at length. You know, and it would have been great to have her over here. But it is important to develop people in the pipeline. No question about it. In 60 Minutes, yes. And in evening news, in 60 Minutes, there's no question. I think CBS has developed a great group of younger correspondents. A lot of them came out in the war. They did some excellent work. I think all the networks did. And out of that spring the next generation. I mean, that's where Dan Rather was. He was a reporter out in the field. And he got noted, made his mark during the assassinations, hurricanes. And there you go. There he was. News. Walter Cronkite could have something to do with his 75th. Absolutely. He's going to say what? You will see Walter there. You'll see a matter of presenter. You know, it's going to be great. They're going to be terrific. Yeah. I think I make this argument to friends all the time, and I really do believe it's not because I'm involved in the process of television and love it. And you know, why wouldn't you love it? You get up every morning and you think about what's going on in the world. And I create things that people will see. And I mean, what a great way. Unbelievably exciting. You know, you know, you whatever, what is entertainment or examine the documentaries or whatever. I also would argue, and I'm talking too much here, I would argue that there has never been such a wonderful range of options. You know, I mean, just think of all the great documentaries you can now see. Absolutely. You can see BBC America. You can see... you know, anybody that says because of vertical integration, that's been one of the criticisms here, you know, you're not getting enough creative choices out there, is nuts. Anybody that can't go home and find something in that 100 or 200 channel universe that they have, I think the range of choices is phenomenal. It's great. Congratulations. That's CBS on your own leadership there. And also on a great network celebrating 75 years of being part of the American culture.

Let's move this for the hour. Thank you for joining us. We'll see you next time.