Moonves: B o A a Friend to Local TV

With New York’s financial institutions crumbling, the Wall Street debacle loomed large over CBS Corp. boss Leslie Moonves’ presentation at the Goldman Sachs media conference yesterday at the Grand Hyatt in Manhattan. Moonves found a silver lining amidst the shakeup of the Wall Street landscape: Bank of America is a significant advertisers of its financial services on television stations, much more so than Merrill Lynch, which B o A is acquiring in a fire sale, and Lehman Brothers, which filed for bankruptcy. So if one of the three outfits had to come out on top, Moonves said it’s good for local television that B o A did. 

"I think this weekend was good for us," Moonves said, then made it very clear that he was kidding.