WHEN: Today, Tuesday, October 13th
WHERE: CNBC's "Squawk Box"
Following are excerpts from the unofficial transcript of a CNBC interview with CBS Corp. President & CEO Les Moonves on CNBC's "Squawk Box" (M-F, 6AM-9AM ET) today. Following are links to the interview on CNBC.com: http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000431808, http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000431805and http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000431801.
All references must be sourced to CNBC.
MOONVES ON NETFLIX
Dealing with Netflix, Amazon,Hulu, we have made over $2 billion in four years from those services. Now, that's really helped my bottom line quite a bit. Now, one day – and that day may be now – are they a competitor as well? Absolutely. But frankly, everybody in our ecosystem is a friend and a competitor. Netflix, clearly, they are now producing 30 original programs. They are trying to compete with us at CBS and at Showtime. But by the same token, they give us a lot of money for our content and God bless them every quarter we thank Netflix.
MOONVES ON THE GOLDEN AGE IN TELEVISION
Right now today, there's over 400 scripted programs – comedies and dramas – out in the market place. Five years ago there was half that amount. Are we spreading ourselves too thin? Probably. Yet at the same time, I think we are in the golden age of television in that every person in America can pick out ten great shows that they watch often.
MOONVES ON THE NFL
The NFL is the greatest tool you have for getting your network renewed by all the MVPDs, all the cable systems, the satellite systems, et cetera. People can't live without the NFL on Sunday.
MOONVES ON HEADING TOWARDS AN A LA CARTE WORLD
We are heading towards the a la carte world. We are heading toward the place where people say, "I want to watch this, this, this, this and I'm going to pay for those 10 channels, those 12 channels either individually or in the bundle and that's it." They are not going to pay a quarter for the karate channel.
MOONVES ON RATINGS
The ratings game right now is a bit of a mess, okay. It is impossible now to put together the real ratings. Now, unfortunately, a lot of the media, a lot of the analysts start – continue to write about overnights. Overnights are virtually meaningless. Because now so much more of the viewing is delayed by three days, you are getting it online, you're getting it by DVR.
Becky Quick: I sometimes watch a week or two later or more.
Les Moonves: Exactly. And they have yet figured out how to count it all properly.
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