Mediatech's Bibb: Moonves Best Option to Run CBS-Viacom (Audio)

time in eight years. West Texas Intermediate crewed up four point seven percent, up two oh seven of seventy five, SMP up eleven to seventy one again there of five tenths of one percent, The Dow up one ten points, up six tents of one percent, Gold down three ninety the Ounce to drop there of three tents of one percent, CBS up four percent, Viacom up two point six percent. I'm Charlie Palett. That's a Bloomberg business flash. You're listening to Taking Stock with Pim Box and Kathleen Hayes on

Bloomberg Radio. We are broadcasting live from Bloomberg Most Influential Summit at our world headquarters. I'm Pim Fox. My co host Kathleen Hayes. Uh, let's think the Walking Dead, n c I S and the Big Bang Theory to my next guest. I put the question if Viacomm and CBS we're going to be a television program, what would it be closest to? Porter bib is managing partner Media Tech Capital Partners, and he can be followed on Twitter at quarter three quarter go ahead, Well, let's keep it within

the network. The Walking Dead works best for vehicle from the Big Bang theory, I think for CBS, tell Us walk Well LESMNVS is probably the most capable manager in the media business right now, and he's since he's been a standalone company for the last ten years. He's doubled the market value of CBS. And he's the only real linear television network executive who has figured out how to transition to digital effectively and profitably. For these kind of stories,

just they make my head hurt. My dot com what's spun off from CBS ten years ago? Yes, six, Sherry Redstone's daughter is in favor of recombining the two under the leadership of CBS CEO Less Moon. Does I mean does it? How much difference does it make? How important is this to to whom? To the shareholders? The shareholders, I guess first and foremost because ultimately the company, but that's what the share of the shareholders are going to benefit. How much it means a lot to both CBS shareholders

and to Vehicom shareholders. Vehicom has lost sixty seven percent of its market value in the last couple of years. CBS, on the other hand, is going through the roof under Less Moon does so there's a lot of tension. Less is not particularly enthusiastic about taking the reigns of a failed company. What's wrong with why they fail well badly? Leadership under under Dolman and Dooley. Dooley is going at the end of November, and they've been looking around everywhere

for somebody to come in. They tried to get Tom Freston to come back. He refused, And it's a leaderless ship right now. But it's got terrific assets and a lot of development potential. And I say that they will end up coming together. When Redstone split them, he thought one and one could equal four or five. What he got was one in one equal one and a half. And he's he's the real key factor. Sherry Bradstone does

not want to run either company. She wants to protect the value of the estate and the assets that the National Amusement has and she'll do everything she can to increase the value. So the only way you can really do that in a recognizable way has put less monos in charge and let him do his thing this, which I think he will. You know, it's interesting that you described less moons and a digital transformation because I think that leads into something that is coming up in Washington.

This has to do with a vote by the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, and it has to do with just that very thing about who's got access to your house, how much they charge you for access, or how much they're charging for entertainment and programming, and who supplies all these bits and pieces, not just the software, not just the programming, but the actual box. It's the it's the decoding box that that translates the digital signal into your

TV set. And the f SEC, in all likelihood, is going to make the cable industry stop forcing cable subscribers to rent for anywhere from six to eleven dollars a month the set top box that they provide and give you free access. And you don't really need one now because the television set industry is making it uh sets that have all of this the ingredients of a set top box built in including streaming capability on the Internet. So if it is the SEC probably will they will. Yeah.

So then in terms I'm a shareholder, I'm an investor. What is as for me? Well, it's going to be a twenty billion dollar loss of business to the cable industry. So Comcast, Time, Warner Cable or Charter Are and other cable operators are going to suffer a little bit, not too much, because they probably will get it back by raising the rates in the broad pan distribution that they

give you cart off, that's correct. But the other losers are going to be the set top box manufacturers and basically Toshiba's Scientific Atlantic and the two or three others, and they are going to be out of business right now because we don't need set top box anymore. Apple is in a sense a set top box, you bet well, so is Roku. So as Amazon. Wait wait till you put your your Amazon Echo uh in your living room and you voice activate what you want to watch on

the internet or on television. That's a half step away right now. So when I get all this fancy stuff set up, and I'm going to be um tweeting as I watch things are streaming Thing Live and is it gonna is I'm gonna be as a shareholders saying I'm so happy that Disney bought Twitter. Is that going to

go through? I'm not sure it will. I don't I don't see the logic of it um And the problem that Disney has if they, if they ever did own Twitter, is that their their media company, and ABC and ESPN and the other broadcast entities that they have are going to scare away all of the competition. And that's what Twitter needs more than anything else. So I think it might be a non deal, non non deal it would be a good fit for Twitter. I think bankruptcy really.

I think that they have failed to construct a monetization plan and the only people who are going to buy it are somebody who has no concern about profit and loss and wants wants to see if they can roll the dice and create a platform. Could Mark Zuckerberg turn it around without question, without question? But he's he's got his hands ball right now. I wouldn't be surprised. But I think you might consider as as I mentioned Amazon a minute ago, their their voice activated echo U is

it terrific medium for Twitter? Very interesting Porter Bib, you always make us think when you're on the show. We appreciate you joining us so much. Managing Partner Media Tech Capital Partners, thank you for joining us today in our special live broadcast at the Bloomberg Market's most Influential Summit at Bloomberg World Headquarters are producer Sam Lango, Reggie Basil, our technical director Mark Sillis cauchy directing as well. This

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