Wall Street Digs CBS’ Les Moonves and Quincy Smith

It’s the Les and Quincy show! David Miller of SMH Capital tells CNN/Money that Les Moonves is, “a very good marketer of his own stock.” Further, “Leslie Moonves has been extremely effective in promoting the company and its digital initiatives.” Moonves deserves some credit considering that CBS consistently outperforms Viacom since the January 2006 split despite the drag of the radio division and being in last place in the evening news. CNN/Money cites CBS Digital as one of the plusses at the Eye network:

“Last November, CBS hired Quincy Smith, an investment banker at influential media mergers and acquisitions firm Allen & Co., to head up the CBS Interactive unit. Since then, CBS has started to scoop up some digital media assets, including financial news site Wallstrip and online radio service Last.fm and created a syndication network for its content that includes many of the Web’s most prominent social networking sites.”

CBS’ Last.fm, purchased for $280 million to stave off the Howard Stern Effect and the rise of Internet radio, is under some fire at present over forcing indie musicians to relinquish royalties.

If Last.fm, with its hipster cachet and nascent social networking possibilities, can weather the storm, it might turn out to be a net-plus to CBS’ beleaguered radio division. CBS’ Interactive division, and its well-connected president Smith, is doing just fine. According to Mediapost.com:

“CBS has grown from 13 percent reach of unique Internet users to 90 percent, hitting some 134 million unique monthly users. It has struck deals with a number of major video sites — MSN, AOL, Google, YouTube, Veoh, Joost, and cnettv.com, among others. “You can expect to see another 400 more in the fall,” says Smith. “All of CBS Interactive’s video deals are based on a 90-10 revenue-sharing split, according to executives, where CBS keeps 90 percent of the revenue, giving its Internet partners 10 percent.”

— Ron Mwangaguhunga

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