CBS CEO Says Chats With Apple Have Stopped, But Other Companies Are Constantly Ringing

Last year, CBS Corporation CBS’s CEO Les Moonves made several declarations regarding his company’s relationship with Apple Inc. AAPL. On repeated occasions, he assured that the mass media firm was in conversations with the tech behemoth, about the latter’s streaming services. "Apple is having conversations with everyone about doing their own streaming services," he stated back in October.

However, in an interview with CNNMoney, Moonves disclosed that the chats had stopped. "We had conversations a while back, and we haven't had recent conversations with them," he explicated. And his comments make sense, as Apple has reportedly taken a step back from its TV initiatives.

When questioned about other players, like Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN or Facebook Inc FB, that could be interested in the streaming TV service game, the Chief Executive responded: “Every one of those companies is looking at content.”

Moonves went on to point out that Amazon “made a big impact” at the Sundance Film Festival last month, same as Netflix, Inc. NFLX; he assured both were buying plenty of new programming then.

“We are in constant conversations with all of them about partnerships, about licensing our content… and they are going to be very important to our future,” he added.

A Rapidly Changing Business

Finally, CBS’ CEO went into the rapid changes in the company’s business. “If you look at where we were five years ago, we didn't even know half these companies. And now... something like 40 percent of the revenue that CBS is getting didn't exist five years ago,” he concluded.

Disclosure: Javier Hasse holds no positions in any of the securities mentioned above.