Leslie Moonves
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Leslie Moonves (born December 23, 1948 in New York City) is President and Chief Executive Officer of CBS Corporation. Moonves served as co-president and co-chief operating officer of Viacom, Inc., the predecessor to CBS Corporation, from 2004 until the company split on December 31, 2005. Prior to this he was President of CBS Entertainment from 1995 and President of Warner Bros. Television from 1993, where he green-lit the hit shows Wings and Survivor. In his early career, Moonves sought to be an actor. He is a graduate of Bucknell University.
Among the many shows which have given CBS a new lease of life, Moonves can claim particular credit for the CSI franchise — he developed the original while at Warner Bros.
He was the only U.S. broadcast network executive who could claim an increase in viewers in 2003, up 1%. Incidentally, on April 7, 2003, he portrayed himself in an episode of "The Practice", which was a popular drama on ABC.
From early 2004, Leslie has made regular contributions to The Late Show with David Letterman. One of these criticisms was provoked by David Letterman himself when he declared outrage that Jay Leno was featured prominently on the CBS website in an ad for CBS's telecast of the People's Choice Awards. On the Late Show, Letterman jokingly warned the "CBS stooge in the control room" to call his buddies "before things turn ugly," Leslie obliged. Later appearances have taken the same format, with Letterman discussing current events and the CBS network with the company's CEO.
Like Letterman's former employers at NBC (and parent company General Electric) and Westinghouse, Moonves and Viacom have become a target for the occasional late night rant.
On December 23, 2004, Moonves married Julie Chen, who is 21 years his junior [1]. Chen presents CBS' The Early Show and Big Brother.
In February 2005, Moonves was identified as the executive directly responsible for ordering the cancellation of UPN's Star Trek: Enterprise and the ending of the 18-year Star Trek television franchise.[2]. Also, he is considered to be the man responsible for the cancellation of Joan of Arcadia, Judging Amy, and Reba.
In January 2006, Moonves was instrumental in making the deal that brought together CBS-owned UPN with The WB to form the CW Network. Late February 2006 saw CBS (under Moonves' leadership) reporting 4th quarter losses of over $19.5 billion for 2005.
On February 28, 2006, Moonves led CBS to file a $500 million lawsuit against Howard Stern for allegedly breaching his contract by failing to disclose the details of his deal with Sirius Satellite Radio while still employed by Infinity Broadcasting. Stern vowed to fight the suit, and claimed on his radio program that Moonves, and CBS, were trying to "bully" him and his agent, Don Buchwald. Stern later appeared on CBS' own Late Show with David Letterman, wearing a shirt mocking Leslie and his wife. On June 7, 2006, Stern announced that the lawsuit had been settled. As part of the settlement, Sirius acquired the exclusive rights to all of the WXRK tapes (over two decades worth of shows) for $2 million. CBS had originally refused to give Stern rights to his previous shows, which left him chafing for several months.
Moonves resides in the hills above Brentwood, California, and has three children: Adam, Michael, and Sara from former wife of 26 years Nancy Wiesenfeld Moonves (m. 17-Dec-1978, div. 2004) [3].
