[laughter] would you fix your tie, please . David i dont consider myself a journalist. 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, and after a number of years you abandoned that. Have you ever thought that, you know, the country and the world has now missed having another de niro or pacino by your not being in the acting world . Leslie no, i think it was a great benefit to america that i decided to give that up and go to the other side. I think fairly early on and i was smart enough to realize that probably three or four or five years into my acting career, that i was sort of a mediocre actor. I was also tending bar more than i was acting during those years. And i looked around, and i said, you know what, there are people who do this a lot better than i do. Theres probably Something Else i could do in the business where i could satisfy my creative juices and still be involved, and it ended up being a good decision. David it worked out. But you grew up on long island, right . And then you went to college at bucknell. Did you want to be an actor there . Leslie no, i started out being premed. Because thats what every jewish kid from long island had to do when you went to school, is you had to try to become a doctor. David and what happened when you decided not to do it . Leslie well, i took my first organic chemistry class, and i said this is horrible. Im bad at the sciences. And it was a tough conversation with my parents to tell them that i didnt want to be a doctor. David what did your father say . Leslie we were at a bar in lewisburg, pennsylvania, which is where bucknell is, and i broke it to my father, who was a hardworking guy. He owned gas stations and worked with his hands. I said ive decided im not going to be a doctor. And he said, well, what are you going to do . I said, well, ive decided im going to new york to become an actor. [laughter] leslie and he said, what do you want to do that for . And i said, well, its what makes me happy. And he said, happiness, you think thats all there is to life . [laughter] leslie so that was sort of a typical response of that generation. When i finally became president of cbs, he forgave me. David ok. So you went from bucknell, you went to new york to be an actor, a stage actor, and you did some tv shows actually. If somebody wants to watch six Million Dollar man, youre there. Leslie there are a few episodes where im a bad guy being chased by lee majors. It is all right. I think it is just a touch of heat. I just take him inside. Hell be all right. David six million wasnt your compensation for that, right . Leslie no, it hardly wasnt, no. David so, when you say ok, im not going to be an actor, and you werent going to be a doctor, how did you decide to get into the other side of television, the production side . Leslie when i was an actor, you know, most of the time as an actor, youre on set, and youre virtually doing nothing. You go there for a 16hour day and youre probably working about 20 minutes. So i was sort of fascinated with what everybody else did, and i sort of did a quick study on what it was like to be on a set and 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, i jumped at it. David so when you do that business, you have to be good at either reading scripts and say this is going to work or picking talent. So what was your skill set, the scripts or talent or both . Leslie you know what . Being a mediocre actor, i knew good actors. I really did. I can say, gee, i wish i could do that, and i sort of felt that. And look, 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 it. I became good at picking shows. I joined around 1985 and it got bought by Warner Brothers, and i became president of Warner Brothers television. Soon after that, we had 23 shows on the air. We were leading in the number of shows. I think the next highest had like 12 shows on. But not only did we have 23 shows on the air, we had e. R. And friends, so we had the hottest comedy and the hottest drama in the world on television on nbc. David lets talk about e. R. Was that your idea . Where did the idea come from . How did you green light it . Leslie it wasnt my idea. E. R. Was based on a script that had been written 20 years earlier through Steven Spielbergs company, and michael creighton, the famous scifi writer had written the script. We read the script, went, made a deal with nbc, and then we produced the show. I think my major contribution to that was George Clooney. David you selected him . Leslie george was the guy that i put under contract for four years in a row. He was doing a lot of pilots. He was doing a lot of episodes. And he really wasnt getting anywhere. And i believed in him. I said this guy is really good looking. Hes really charming. [laughter] leslie hes a great guy. So i was the one who talked the producer into using George Clooney in e. R. David and did he call you many times and think you, or he still and thank you . Leslie by the way, believe it or not, he still calls and he thanks me. Were still very close friends. Hes the only one most actors, most producers, most directors, once they succeed, they forget anybody else helped them, you know . Thats sort of the way of the world. I think its the same in washington as it is in hollywood. [laughter] leslie where once you succeed, you forget that anybody helped you along the way. George was one of the few people, whenever given the opportunity, always thanks me. David so friends, what about them . Leslie we hired the writers put together the show. Every show that youve been involved in, you can write a whole book about. France was sold first to fox. Friends was sold first to fox. They wanted it. They didnt want to pay an extra 100,000 for the script. So it flipped over to nbc. That was only a decision that may have cost them 5 billion. [laughter] leslie you know, there are interesting stories. C. S. I. Was originally owned by abc. Then it was sold to cbs, and abc owned half of it. Then they dropped out of owning that half of it. Right . C. S. I. Up to now has made the Cbs Corporation in revenues Something Like 6 billion. So those are big mistakes. Youre gambling with [laughter] youre gambling with a lot of money here. David but when youre deciding on a show or not, you get pitched by agents or the actors call you directly, how do you make decisions who the actors are, the script . Leslie its a little bit of both. It starts with the writers. It starts with the idea, the concept. Occasionally an actor will come attached it it. Attached to it. Most of the time not. Most of the time you get a producer and a writer who comes, and Jerry Bruckheimer will come in and say, hey, i got this idea called c. S. I. Its about a Crime Scene Lab in las vegas, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Then we attach William Petersen to it, and then it rolls from there. David if you are les moonves and you go to a restaurant in hollywood or los angeles, does somebody come up and say, by the way, i have a script, or my nephews is great for a show, or you dont get bothered . Leslie all the time. It happens consistently. The thing that people dont quite understand is its about the execution. Its not about the idea. You know, so you look at you mentioned a show like e. R. What is it about . Its a hospital show, but its what happens in that hospital show. What is cheers about . Its about eight people in a bar. So when a guy comes up to me and says, im a podiatrist, you should see our office is so funny. You got the receptionist there. And you got the old guy there. And this guy there. You know, its a great idea for a show. And, you know, so you politely say, heres my email, please send it to me. David has anybody ever come to you and said a private equity show would be pretty good . [laughter] leslie well, ive seen your performance at the Kennedy Center for many years. You have you have potential. You do. David really . Well, i ive wondered about that. Sometimes at the Kennedy Center honors, the chairman goes out and makes a little presentation at intermission. But on tv, it only comes up for like five seconds. So you dont broadcast it. Have you thought about broadcasting the entire 20 minutes of my presentation . [laughter] david is there a lot of demand for that . Leslie youre lucky we put the five seconds on. [laughter] [applause] david right. Companies like netflix and apple and facebook and amazon, theyre in the streaming business, right . Leslie money alone doesnt lead to good programming. It is tough. Were competing with companies that are, you know, that could eat us alive. David you obviously got a good reputation at warner, so somebody came along and said this man has a golden touch. And so cbs recruited you. So what shows were you producing at the early days in cbs that people would have heard of . Leslie well, our fist hit show during that time was Everybody Loves raymond. You know, we were desperately in last place. We put on raymond, and we slowly began to build brick by brick, and a couple of years later is when we put on c. S. I. And survivor, and that sort of changed the game. Those two shows came on in the same year. Nbc, which had dominated Network Television for two decades, we put them both on thursday night. And we took down nbc for the first time in two decades on thursday, and we ended up beating them, and weve now beat them for the last 14 out of 15 years. David so like survivor. When survivor came, that was an unusual show at the time. Did you say get this guy out of here, thats crazy, or you said maybe theres something to it . Leslie no, the first time one of my guys pitched it to me i said thats the stupidest idea ive ever heard. That doesnt belong on cbs. That belongs on some bad cable network. David right. [laughter] leslie 16 people on a desert island, and one gets thrown out every week . Thats ridiculous. So he was persistent, this Young Development executive. And then he brought mark burnett in to meet me. And for those who dont know him, hes maybe the most persuasive person youve ever seen, you know . He subsequently after that did a show called the apprentice, and we know what happened from there. David who was the star of that show . Leslie i dont remember. I dont remember. But mark burnett was a great producer. He put on survivor, and here we are 18 years later, survivor is still on wednesday night at 8 00 and still wins its time period. David do you ever say this show going to be great and it turns out to be a bomb . Do you have any of those stories . Leslie all the time. All the time. Look, our batting average is better than most, but its still probably four out of 10. Four out of 10 is the hall of famer in television. But thats sort of the television business. You know youre playing for a few wins. David in television, everything seems to be ratings. Are you sure that the people who do the ratings are really giving you accurate numbers . Leslie well, thats one of the questions, especially now, because now linear ratings arent the whole ballgame like they used to be. So youll take a show that initially, in the initial viewing, wont be that good, but when you count dvrs and online ratings, suddenly the numbers go up considerably. David i notice very often tv shows are judged by how many people the ages of 18 to 49, or 25 to 54, are watching. What about the people who really have the money who are in their 60s and are really sophisticated . Why arent they counting . Leslie youre absolutely right. Thats one of the things thats bothered me for all these years, and it has changed. They used to do 18 to 49 was all that mattered. Thats changed. And the argument was, who has more money . A 50yearold or a 19yearold . Who has more money . Who has the buying power . And i remember one year, nbc was out selling that they have the highest 18 to 25yearold upscale viewers. So i do my presentation, and i said the only 18 to 25yearold upscale people i know are my kids. You know . [laughter] leslie and im deciding what kind of car theyre going to buy, not them, you know . So, you know, it was sort of a bogus statistic. And youre right, so now the good news is, more and more people who are a little bit older, the average age of the 60 minutes viewer is over 60. But we make a lot of money on that show. We are selling a lot of pharmaceuticals during that show. [laughter] leslie were selling a lot. But i notice they still make a lot of money. David the shows i watch, they often have depends ads or they have catheter ads. Leslie and were not going to talk about e. D. Either. David wasnt viagra a big seller for you . Leslie it was, but they changed the patent laws. In all seriousness, viagra has gone down. [laughter] leslie and by 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. Youre at cbs. And then all of a sudden somebody comes along and wants to buy all of cbs, and that is viacom. Leslie i became the copresident of viacom with the guy who ran mtv. David and then after a couple of years where viacom has cbs, and viacom decided it would be better to split the companies in two. Leslie correct. David the theory at the time was that cbs was a little slower growing. It turned out to be the opposite. Why did everybody get it wrong . Leslie well, not going to talk about viacom in a pejorative manner. Look, at the time, we were the slow growth company. We owned the tv network. We owned a bunch of radio stations. We owned a billboard company. We owned tv stations. The other side at paramount pictures, they had nickelodeon and mtv. We liked being the underdog. Ok, its via grow, via slow. That is what they called us. Our market cap has grown about 12 billion since then. We grew a lot. We have done extremely well. Our stock price has gone up considerably. I think were very competitive. I think we figured out the internet space. We figured out how to put our content online very quickly. So its been a good decade for us in terms of the growth. David Going Forward many times people who get cable services, they have a cable contract. Now theres what they call cord cutting. They dont really want 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, ok . The average home right now gets 180 channels. They pay approximately 100 a month for that. So some of the operators said, wait a minute, people are paying for channels they never watch. So they do whats called a skinny bundle, which is they put together the 30 or 40 best channels, charge you 1 3, 35, 40, and you buy that. We will always be a part of that. The skinnier bundle. Then the third segment is we now have our own line service. So for 5. 99, you can get a thing called cbs all access, which is basically every show cbs has ever produced, the entire library, our current schedule, plus now were beginning to do original programming there. David ok. A lot of this is streaming. Leslie correct, streaming. David now netflix, apple, facebook, and amazon, theyre in the streaming service. Leslie right. David is that going to cut into your 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 very competitive with them. Money alone doesnt lead to good programming. What we like say is, you cant program by algorithm, you know, which is part of what netflix does. And they do a lot of programs. Theyre doing 75 original programs, and they put them out there, and they have a certain amount of hits. Our job is we have to be a lot more concise in what were producing for our audience, and as i said, creatively, i think were as good as anybody, and thats what wins the day for us, you know . It is tough. Were competing with companies that are, you know, that could eat us alive. David so for example, apple is gigantic, amazon and so forth, so youre now relatively modest in terms of market capitalization compared to them. So its your talent, your skill that you think makes you able to compete . Leslie no question. In addition, its broadcast. Broadcast, people say broadcast is dead. Its not. Its still the only place you can go to get 20 Million People a week watching ncis or big bang theory. So if youre an advertiser, and you want to reach an audience, you still need the big guys, the big broadcaster. David you broadcast football. Is that the most profitable. Leslie it is not the most profitable, but those ratings you cant live without it. David super bowl, is that the most expensive thing one can advertise on television. Leslie yes. I think the last super bowl got fired for 2 million for a 32nd spot. David so lets talk about some of the shows you have now. You have the number onerated news show, which is 60 minutes. How do 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. Its still the place where people get their most news, and i think our guys do a phenomenal job. I think its also now so culturally significant that people know, 7 00 sunday night, theres one place to go, and thats 60 minutes. So they remain, in year 50, a top 15 show in america. David you have the number one, i guess, drama show, ncis. Is that right . Leslie right. David where did that idea come from . Leslie it was a spinoff of a show called jag, a Navy Military show, which was sort of based on that tom cruise, Jack Nicholson movie, im blanking on it. A few good men. Thank you. Courtroom drama, navy doing it, that was jag, and this became, you know, we had been obviously successful with c. S. I. , so we took the jag formula, made it into a procedural drama. And now weve spun ncis off twice. David what about big bang theory, where did that come from . Leslie that came from chuck lorre, who worked on two and a half men, created that show and came to us with that idea, and we put it on the air, and its been a success ever since. David lets talk about the evening news shows. When i was growing up, when you were growing up, people would watch 15 minutes of evening news, then it went to 30 minutes. But now people have so many news sources, do that many people watch the evening news shows . Are they still as relevant as they were . Leslie the three Network Evening news combined are watched still by 23 million, 24 million a night. Thats not nearly what it used to be when Walter Cronkite and huntley and brinkley were doing it, where it was the only source of news. Because, you know, what you say is absolutely valid. People are getting their news all day long, so i think the 6 30 news now sort of gives you further insight into the news as opposed to just reporting the news. And i think they do well. They do better in times of crises. Obviously during the hurricanes, people want to see whats going on. But now with the advent of these big cable news networks, and also with all that you get online, they become a bit less important, but 23 pillion people Million People are still a lot of people. David ok. So you have recently had your head of your cbs evening news show go to 60 minutes. Do you have any announcements you want to make today on who the replacement is . Leslie nope, we have an acting person doing the job, and were talking about what we can do for the future, but we have no announcements. David you dont want anybody leslie were not making news today, no matter what you say. David ok. You wouldnt consider having a private equity person do that . [laughter] leslie maybe. Maybe. David ok. Leslie there have been worse ideas, you know . Why dont you buy cbs . Then put yourself in as the anchor. [laughter] david thats about the only way i would get in as the anchor, but ok. You broadcast football. Is that the most profitable thing on television for networks . Leslie its not the most profitable, but its the most important. Its by far the highest rated. We pay quite a bit in rights fees, as do the other networks. We do make a profit on it, but those ratings, you cant live without it. Its still the best game in town. David the super bowl, is that the most expensive thing one can advertise on in television . Leslie yes. I think this last super bowl got 5. 2 million per 30second spot on it. So its, unfortunately we only get it ever third year. But when that third year comes, its very lucrative. David do you ever feel you are losing touch with the younger people that are often making decisions about what shows are most popular . Leslie i got a Phenomenal Team of people. I think as the c. E. O. Of a corporation, thats the best thing you can do is hire really good people. So we have the cbs Interactive Division is made up of about 2,000 people up in san francisco, who i visit with frequently. And their average age is like 24 or Something Like that. And theyre phenomenal. Theyre phenomenal in terms of and theres a lot of dialogue, and you know what . In this job, you got to be a good listener. You got to be a good listener, a good observer to whats going on, and once again, i may be the final arbiter on which shows go on the air, but theres a lot of input, and i listen to a lot of good people. David whats the greatest pleasure of doing the job . 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 that ive met, from politics to athletes to entertainers, its pretty cool. Its pretty cool. David so how do you get away from it all . Are you a golfer . Are you an exerciser . What do you do . Leslie im a mediocre golfer. I exercise fairly regularly. I have a spectacular wife, who is also on a couple of Cbs Television shows. I have four great kids, who i dont get to spend enough time with, but three of them are out of the house. I watch a lot of movies. I enjoy that. I have a small circle of friends who i dont get to see enough. But, you know what . I work hard, but i play hard, too. Im pretty content. David ok, so now your parents have lived to see your success. Your mother just passed away about a year ago, but at the age of 93. And your father is alive at leslie 96. David did he ever say, yes, you really did make the right decision . [laughter] leslie oh, yeah. You know, when i bought him a car, he said you did good, you know . [laughter] leslie it was ok. No, you know what . Hes been proud of me a long time. And, you know, its been great. We use our phones and computers the same way these days. So why do we pay to have a phone connected when were already paying for internet . Shouldnt it all just be one thing . Thats why Xfinity Mobile comes with your internet. You can get 5 lines of talk and text included at no extra cost. So all you pay for is data. Choose by the gig or unlimited. And now, get a 200 prepaid card when you buy an iphone. Its a new kind of network designed to save you money. Call, visit, or go to xfnitymobile. Com. Haslinda hello. I am Haslinda Amin in singapore. The philippines in 1983, a highprofile assassination, dollar crisis, a ban on imports, and the beginnings of a revolution. It was lifechanging times for chris po, son of the countrys king, now ceo of sentry pacific food. Chris po is todays high flyer
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