Les Moonves

The CBS boss said Thursday he expects to announce CBS All Access carriage deals with affiliates, in which they would share some portion of the monthly fee, “in the fairly near future.”

The company’s CEO says that while he believes the affiliate system is “healthy,” CBS has got contingency plans if they can’t deliver in the future. The network is also ratcheting up the financial pressure on affiliates with its reverse compensation requirements and is on track to hit $2 billion in retrans and reverse comp revenues by 2020.

While upfront negotiations aren’t likely to begin until the end of the month, Les Moonves believes the outcome is a fait accompli. Speaking to investors Tuesday afternoon during CBS Corp.’s first quarter earnings call, the company’s president and CEO pulled no punches. “We led the upfront last year and I guarantee we will lead it again this year, both in volume and CPMs,” Moonves said, adding that his sales team will push hard on pricing.

CEO Les Moonves says the network has been quietly making deals and that the affiliates “realize that [reverse comp] is good for them in large part because of what the network is delivering.” Most of the deals, he says, are for a fixed fee rather than a percentage. He says an agreement that includes reverse comp with a major station group is imminent.

During CBS’s first quarter earnings call, CBS CEO Les Moonves said that “between the strength of our programming, our development, and the marketplace, we expect to see solid double-digit increases when we sell next year’s schedule a few weeks from now.” Moonves has been promising double-digit CPM hikes since mid-winter, when he began telling investors that his sales team would shatter the 10% threshold. Many observers believe CBS’s growth may be as high as 14% or 15% — and the network may just have the muscle to make the numbers work.

TheWrap’s annual survey of mogul paystubs found that the same executives who made a big show of cutting their paychecks during tough times are now enjoying sizable pay increases.

In a open letter to CBS CEO Les Moonves and NCAA President Mark Emmert, Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) asked them to move the Connecticut Huskies NCAA tourney game Thursday night against the Wofford Terriers from TNT to CBS affiliate WFSB Hartford. According to Courtney, 150,000 Connecticut households would be unable to watch the game on cable.