Please . David well, people wouldnt recognize me if my tie was fixed, but ok. Just leave it this way. Alright. David i dont consider myself a journalist. And nobody else would consider myself a journalist. I began to take on the life of being an interviewer even though i have a day job of running a private equity firm. How do you define leadership . What is it that makes somebody tick . You actually started out, you wanted to be an actor. You abandon that. Have you ever thought the country in the world has missed having another Robert De Niro or al pacino . I think it was a great benefit to america that i decided to give that up and go to the other side. Early on, i was smart enough to realize it, threefive years into my acting career am it was a mediocre actor. I was also tending bar more than i was acting. I looked around and said there are people who do this better than i do. There is probably Something Else i can do in the business where i could satisfy my creative juices and still be involved, and it ended up being a good decision. David you grew up on long island and went to college and you wanted to be an actor there . Leslie no, i started out being premed because the is what every jewish kid from long island had to do when you went to school, you had to try to become a doctor. David what happened when you decided not to do it . Leslie i took my first organic chemistry class and said this is horrible, bad at sciences, and it was a tough conversation with my parents to tell them i didnt want to be a doctor. David what did your father say . Leslie we were at a bar in louisville, pennsylvania, and i aoke it to my father, who is hardworking guy who owned gas stations and worked with his hands. I said, i decided i am not going to be a doctor. He said, what are you going to do . Issa, welcome i decide to go to new york and become an actor. He said, what you want to do that for . I said, well, it is what makes me happy. And he said, happiness . You think that is all there is to life . [laughter] leslie that was a typical response of that generation. When i finally became president of cbs comedy for gave me. [laughter] david so you went to new york to be an actor, stage actor, and its and tv shows actually, and if somebody wants to watch 6 million man, you are there . Leslie there are 23 episodes where im playing a bad guide being chased by the majors. Just take him inside. He will be all right. David 6 million was not your compensation for that, right . Leslie no, hardly. When you said im not going to be an actor come at dr. , how did you decide to get into the production side of television . As an most of the time actor you are on set and virtually doing nothing. You go there for a 16 hour day and are probably working 20 minutes, so i was fascinated with what everybody else did and did a quick study on what it was like to be on the set. I learned about what the business was about, and so when an opportunity came to get to the other side of the camera as a junior executive in a Production Company and i jumped at it. David you have to be good at reading script sensing this is going to work or picking talent, so what was your skill set . Leslie being a mediocre actor, i knew what good actors were. I really did. I sort of felt that. I had very good creative instincts. I watched a lot of television. I saw what was working, what wasnt working, and i became good at taking shows. I became president of warner bros. Television. Soon after that, we had 23 shows on air. We were leading in the number of shows. I think the next highs had 12 shows on, but not only did we have 23 shows on the air, we had er and friends, the hottest comedy and drama in the world on television on nbc. David lets talk about er. Was that your idea . How did you green light it . Leslie it wasnt my idea. It was based on a script written 20 years earlier through Steven SpielbergsReduction Company by Michael Christ and Michael Christ and and made a script deal with nbc, then we produce the show. I think my major contribution to that was George Clooney. David you selected him . Leslie george was a guy i put under contract for four years in a row. He was doing a lot of pilots, episodes, and he was not getting anywhere. I believed in him. I said this guy is really goodlooking, really charming. He is a great guy, so i was the one who talked to the producer into using George Clooney in er. David does he still call you and thank you . Leslie believe it or not, he still calls me and thanks me. Close friends. He is the only one. Most actors, producers, directors, once they succeed, they forget anybody help them. That is the way of the world. It is the same in washington as in hollywood. George is one of the people when given the opportunity, always thanks you. David friends, what about that . Leslie we hired the writers, put together the show. You beenshow involved in, you can write a whole novel about it. Friends was first sold to fox. They wanted it. They didnt want to pay and a hundred thousand dollars for the script, so it flipped over to nbc. That was a decision that cost them 5 billion. [laughter] leslie there are interesting stories. Abc,as originally owned by then it was sold to cbs and abc own half of it, then they dropped out of owning that half, right . Has made the Cbs Corporation in revenue Something Like 6 billion, so those are big mistakes. [laughter] leslie your gambling with a lot of money here. David when you are deciding on a show or not, you get pitched by agents, or the actors call you directly . Had you make decisions . Leslie it is a little bit of both. It starts with the writers, the idea, concepts. Occasionally an actor will, attached to it. Most of the time not. Jerry bruckheimer will come in and sale got this idea called csi about a Crime Scene Lab in we ingas, then we attach peterson to it, then it rolls from there. David if you are Leslie Moonves and go to a restaurant in hollywood or los angeles, does some become up to you and say, i have a script or my nephew is great for a show . Leslie all the time. It happens consistently. The thing that people dont quite understand is that it is about the execution, not the idea. Er. Mentioned a show like it is a hospital show come but it is what happens in that hospital show. What is cheers about . It is about eight people in a , i am uphen a guy says and i trust. You should see, our office is so funny. You got the reception is there and the old guy there, and this guy there, and it is a great idea for a show. So you politely say, here is my email. Ever come anybody given set of private equity show would be very good . [laughter] leslie well, ive seen you perform at the Kennedy Center for many years pure you have potential, you really do. Wondered on that, sometimes the Kennedy Center honors, the chairman makes a little presentation at intermission, but on tv, it only comes out to five seconds. Have you thought about broadcasting the entire 20 minutes of my presentation . Leslie you are lucky we put the five seconds up. [laughter] [applause] david right. Apple,es like netflix, facebook, and amazon, they are in the streaming business. Leslie money alone does not lead to good programming. It is tough. We are competing with companies that are, that could eat as alive. David you obviously have got a very good reputation at warner bros. Amebody said this man has golden touch, and so cbs recruited you. Shows were you producing early days at cbs . David our first show was Everybody Loves raymond. We were definitely in last place. We slowly begin to build brick by brick, and a couple of years later is when we put on csi and survivor, and that sort of change the game. Those two shows came on in the same year. Nbc, which am Network Television for two decades, we put them both on thursday night. For the firstbc time in two decades on thursday, and we ended up eating them and we now beat them for the last 14 out of 15 years. David when survivor came, that was an unusual show at the time. Did you say, get this guy out of here . Of the firstne times my guys pitched it to me, i said that is the stupidest idea that ever heard. That doesnt belong on cbs. That belongs on some bad cable network. 16 people on a Desert Island and one gets thrown out every week, that is ridiculous. He was persistent, then he mark burnett into meet me. He is maybe the most persuasive person you have ever seen. A subsequently after that did show called the apprentice, and we know what happened from there. David who was the star of the show . Leslie i dont remember. But mark burnett was a great producer and put on survivor, and here we are 18 years later and survivor is still on wednesday night at 8 00. David do you ever say this shows going to be great and it turns out to be a bomb . Leslie all the time. All the time. Look, our batting average is better than most, but it is still probably four out of 10. Four out of 10 is a hall of famer in television, but that is the television business. You know you are playing for a few wins. David on television, everything seems to be ratings. Are you sure the people who do the ratings are giving you accurate numbers . Leslie that is one of the questions, especially now. Now linear ratings are not the whole ballgame like they used to be, so you will take a show that initially, the initial viewing want be that good, but when you count dvr and online ratings, suddenly the numbers go up considerably. David i noticed in ratings often that tv shows are but judge by how many people 1849, or 2554 watch it. What about the money who have their money in the 60s and are sophisticated . Leslie you are right. That is one of the things that has bothered me for all these years. It has changed. 1849 was all that mattered. That changed. The argument was who has more money . A 50 year old or a 19 europe . Who has the buying power, and i remember one year that nbc was outselling that they have the highest 1825yearold upscale i do my presentation and i say the only 1820 fiveyearold upscale people i know are my kids. [laughter] leslie i am deciding what kind of car they will buy, not them. It was a bogus statistic. You are right. Now the good news is that more and more people who are a little bit older, the average age of the 60 minutes view or is over 60. We make a lot of money on that show. We are selling a lot of pharmaceuticals during that show. [laughter] david the shows i watch, they often have depends ads or catheter ads. Leslie and were not going to talk about ed. David wasnt viagra big seller for you . Change it was, but they the laws. In all seriousness, viagra has gone down. [laughter] the way, that was made up by the head of our advertising group. Im not going to steal that joke. David ok. All right, so your career is moving forward. You are at cbs. All of a sudden, somebody once to buy all of cbs, and that is fire,. Leslie i became copresident with the guy who ran in tv. David a couple of years, viacom has cbs and decided it would be better to split the companies and two. The theory at the time was cbs was slower growing. It turned out to be the opposite. Why did everybody get it wrong . Leslie im not going to talk about viacom in a pejorative manner. Were the slowe growth company. We owned a tv network. Of radioa bunch stations. We owned a billboard company. We owned tv stations. The other side of Paramount Pictures had mtv, nickelodeon. We liked being the underdog. Viagroe that, ok, it and viaslow. We grew a lot. Our stock price has gone up significantly. We are very competitive. Internetd out the space. We figured out how to put our content online very quickly. It has been a good decade for us in terms of the growth. David going forward, many times who get Cable Service have a cable contract. Now there is cord cutting and they dont want to get all of these cable channels. How does that affect you . Leslie there are a couple of things that have changed. Now there are things called skinny bundles. The average home gets 180 channels and pay approximate 100 a month for them. So, some of the operator said, wait a minute, people are paying for channels they never watch, so they do what is called a skinny bundle, they together 3040 best channels in charge of 30 and you buy that. We will always be part of that, the skinny bundle. The third segment is we now have our online service. Cbs all9 you can get access, which is basically every the cbs has ever produced, entire library, our current schedule, plus now we are beginning to do original programming there. David so a lot of this was done therefore on streaming . Leslie correct. Companies like netflix and apple and facebook and amazon, they are in the streaming business, right . Yourat going to cut into ability to get the best talent because they have so much money they can pay crazy prices . Leslie it is a challenge. They are very competitive. They are spending a lot of money. At the end of the day, we produce most of our own content now. We have to be competitive with them. Money alone does not lead to good programming. What we like to say is you cant program by algorithm. That is what part of netflix does. And they do a lot of programming. They do 75 original programs and there andow out have a lot of hits. We have to be concise about what we are producing for our audience. Creatively we are as good as anybody come and that is what wins the day. It is tough. We are competing with companies that could eat us alive. David apple is gigantic finance lee, amazon and so forth, so you are relatively modest in terms or market capitalization in comparison to them. It is your talent and skill that allows you to compete . Leslie no question. People say broadcast is dead. It is not. It is the only place you can go to get 20 Million People week the big bang. Or if you are an advertiser and want to reach an audience, you still need the big guys from the big broadcasters. David you have recently had the head of your evening news show go to 60 minutes. Do you have any announcements you want to make on the replacement . Leslie nope. We have the acting person doing the job and we are talking about what we would do in the future. We are not making news today, david, no matter what you say. [laughter] you wouldnt consider having a private equity person do that . David lets talk about some of the shows you have now. You have the number one rated new show, which is 60 minutes here had you keep it so lively and up to date . Leslie i think 60 minutes is the gold standard. I still think people want to go there. It is still the place where people get their most in news, our guys do have a phenomenal job. It is now so culturally significant that people know 7 00 sunday night, there is one place to go, and that is 60 yeares, so they remain in 50 the top 15 show in america. David you have the number one drama show, ncis, where did that idea come from . Leslie it was the spinoff of a Navy Military show which was based on that tom cruisejack nicholson movie a few good men. Becameom drama, and this , we had been successful with formulawe took the jag and made it into a procedural drama, and now we have spun it off like we did with csi. David what about the Big Bang Theory . Chuck that came from lori, who we had worked with on two and a half men, created that show and came to us with that idea and we put it on the air and it has been a success ever since. David lets talk about your evening news shows. When i was growing up, people would watch 50 minutes, then 30 minutes, but now people have so many news sources, are they still as relevant as they were . Leslie the three Evening Network news combined are watched by 23 million to 24 million a night. That is not near what it used to doing italter cronkite where it was the only source of news. What you say is valid. People are getting their news all day long. The six 30 news now gives you further insight into the news as opposed to just reporting the news. I think they do well. They do better in times of crises. Obviously during the hurricanes people want to see what is going on, but with the advent of the Cable News Networks and all you get online, they become a bit less important. 23 Million People is still a lot of people. David you have recently had the head of your cbs new show go to 60 minutes. Do you have any announcements on who the replacement is . Leslie nope. We have an acting person doing the job and were talking about what we would do in the future, but we have no announcements. We are not making news today, david, no matter what you said. David you would not consider a private equity person do it . [laughter] leslie maybe, maybe. There have been worse ideas. One at you by cbs, then you could put yourself in as the anchor . [laughter] [applause] is about the only way a would get in as the anchor. Ou broadcast football is that the most profitable thing on television for networks . Moste it is not the profitable, but is by far the highest rated. We pay quite a bit and rights fees, as do the other networks. We do make a profit, but those ratings, you cant live without it. David super bowl, is that the expensive thing one can advertise on . Leslie the last super bowl got 5. 2 million for a 32nd spot. We only get it every third year, but it is very lucrative. You areo you ever feel losing touch with the younger people that are often making decisions about what shows are most popular . Phenomenal team of people. As the ceo of a corporation, the best and you can do is hire really good people. Cbs interactive is made up of 2000 people in San Francisco who i visit with frequently, and their average age is like 24 Something Like that, and they are phenomenal. They are phenomenal in terms of there is a lot of dialogue. In this job come you have to be a good listener. You have to be a good observer of what is going on. Once again, i may be the final arbiter on which shows go on the air, but there is a lot of input and i listen to a lot of good people. David what is the greatest pleasure . Leslie i get to meet the greatest people in the world. I get to work with some of them. When i think of the people i met from politics to athletes to entertainers, it is pretty cool. It is pretty cool. David how do you get away from it all . Are you a golfer, exerciser . What you do . Mediocre golfer appeared i exercise regularly. I have a spectacular wife on a couple of Cbs Television shows. I have four great kids who i dont get to spend enough time with, but three are out of the house. I watch a lot of movies. I enjoy that. Friends small circle of i dont get dizzy enough. I work hard, but i playe hard too. David your parents live to see your success. Your mother passed away at 93. Your father is alive at leslie 96. David did he ever say, yes, you made the right decision . Leslie oh, yes. When i bought him a car, he said, you did good. [laughter] leslie it was ok. You know what, he has been proud of me a long time. It has been great. Under a minute away from the open of markets in hong kong. Love like feeling the japan getting a lift from the yen. Is it feeling it speaks to your point on yield curve control in japan. May be of little more time to let that summer. Maybe it is toddling towards 2 inflation, the boj expected to stay the course on that Monetary Policy decision. The statement, the guidance, how the boj plans to deal with the surprise hawkish statement from the fed overnight, still on hold for that december rate hike. Three more next year despite sluggish inflation when it comes to the u. S. Market, really treading water. Taiwan and philippines coming out with centralbank decisions today. Lets get it over to mainland markets hitting underway. Sophie. What islets look at going on. A mixed session so far when it comes to the equity space in asia. Barely large caps budging. The hang seng falling for a second day this week. When it comes to the currency space, Dollar Strength continuing to dominate the theme there with the relief rally held at some sort of renaissance for the dollar of sorts. The in mind markets remain most bearish on ll