MOONVES: EVEN BAD FOOTBALL GAMES GET GOOD RATINGS

Television executives love football fans. Unlike TV shows that require dozens of producers, writers, focus groups, and public relations personnel to become successful, football requires none of that. “The NFL is an unbelievable property,” CBS chief Les Moonves told a media conference in New York on Tuesday. “You see it in the ratings: Even a bad football game out-rates most programming. So, we love our relationship with the NFL.” CBS currently pays $619.8 million for its AFC broadcast rights to Sunday afternoon games that nearly always bleed over into primetime and boost the ratings of the rest of its Sunday-night shows. AdWeek, citing unnamed sources, said that rate is likely to rise to more than $1 billion when the NFL-CBS contract is renewed. “We’re aware that when a new deal gets made the price of poker is going up_and it should go up,” Moonves said. “They’ve delivered properties to us that have done extremely well.”