CBS chief: Strike has helped cut costs

Leslie Moonves, president and chief executive of CBS, has said the writers' strike did not do much damage to its revenue and will help cut costs in the long run.

The Writers Guild of America action "lasted longer than any of us would have liked", he admitted, but said the company's "financial picture" was not hurt "in any shape or form".

Moonves was speaking to investors as CBS released results which show its profit was down by 19% last quarter and revenue by 3%. He put it down to recent sales of some underperforming television and radio stations.

He said the strike had seen CBS reduce production deals and significantly cut the number of pilots it produces. It had reduced costs "in ways that will allow us to operate more efficiently going forward", he explained.

"We will still have pilots and presentations, but we will never get up to the number we had before in overall deals," Moonves added. "I think there's been a lot of wasted spending... You don't need to spend $5m on a pilot... If you know what you're doing, you don't have to spend so much."