CBS Chief Les Moonves on New Aereo Deal: ‘We're Willing to Talk to Them’

[dfergie]

CBS chief Les Moonves slammed Aereo on Tuesday after the online TV service's Supreme Court defeat, but said “we're willing to talk to them” about doing a paid content deal.

Aereo suspended its service in the wake of the crushing Supreme Court decision, which sided with CBS and other broadcast networks who contended that the antenna-based subscription service illegally violated their copyrights.

“The door is still open,” Moonves said.

“We are open, we are willing to talk to them about that,” said Moonves, referring to doing a deal. “But I don't think their business model made sense unless they were getting content illegally and for free.”

Aereo has announced since the decision that it may reconstitute itself as a cable company, following the guidelines of the Supreme Court decision.

Moonves said Aereo never approached them about trying to buy a license for their television shows before launching the service that uses antennas to pull their broadcast content; had CEO Chet Kanojia done so, CBS “absolutely” would have considered it.

thewrap.com

 

[Teehar]

Of cour$$e they would.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

CBS has no choice, the Surpreme Court Classified them as a Cable Company, which means they have all the perks of being a cable company, this includes getting a fair price for local channels like other cable systems do.

 

[mike123abc]

CBS has no choice, the Surpreme Court Classified them as a Cable Company, which means they have all the perks of being a cable company, this includes getting a fair price for local channels like other cable systems do.

And just what is this "fair price"? Has the FCC actually stopped any local channel from charging whatever it wants?

The advantage of being "a cable company" is that they will be able to enjoy the copyright statutory license if they can get a deal with the local channel.