CBS still looking to sell some stations; launching local websites

0

CBS Corporation hasn’t divested any broadcast stations lately, but CEO Les Moonves told analysts that he’s still interested in selling some of the company’s smaller market radio at TV stations – but only if the pricing is right.


“Once again, there’s no great hurry to do that and unless we get the right pricing for that we’re not going to do that. However, there appears to be some nice activity now in some of the pricing, so I wouldn’t be surprised if over the next six months to a year we do divest some of our radio stations in a few markets and maybe one or two television stations,” Moonves said in his quarterly conference call with Wall Street analysts.

But while pruning the station portfolio, Moonves is looking to grow the company’s local media business on the Internet. First up is New York City.

“In the coming weeks we will launch a new website in New York that will truly leverage the power of our local assets. It will utilize WCBS-TV and our three news and sports radio stations [WCBS-AM, WINS-AM & WFAN-AM] to create a single, local online destination: CBSNewYork.com. We’re confident we have a terrific formula to serve the local needs of New Yorkers and we will be rolling out similar sites to other major markets around the country soon,” Moonves said.

RBR-TVBR observation: Bravo to CBS and those smart people who are taking advantage in moving the asset / content value and getting to the internet with a great brand entitled CBSNewYork.com. Key here: any station(s) can do the same thing. A radio cluster in any market can bring the best of what they do under one branded website which then can be marketed on all the stations and monetized. Not competing with each other but working a united front.