AT&T’s DirecTV Now online streaming service is one of the best deals in the industry, but without CBS, it still feels incomplete. Thankfully, the two corporations haven’t given up on reaching a fair deal, as CBS CEO Les Moonves told attendees at the UBS Global Media and Communications conference on Monday.
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“I’m assuming we’ll be able to make a deal with them,” Moonves said in response to a question about DirecTV Now, according to The Verge. “As they said in The Godfather, ‘We are not unreasonable people here.'”
CBS might not see its current offer to AT&T as unreasonable, but considering that rumors suggested CBS on DirecTV Now was a done deal weeks before launch, the mobile giant must have concerns about CBS’s demands.
Nevertheless, if AT&T wants to compete with Sling, PlayStation Vue and the upcoming services from Hulu and YouTube, it needs to fill any holes in its lineup as quickly as possible. As Moonves said at the conference, he expects CBS to be available everywhere eventually, even if it takes time to get there:
“What our goal has been with All Access, with being part of skinny bundles, with being part of the larger bundles… No matter how you want your content, we will be available in one form or another.”
That said, Moonves didn’t provide any sort of timetable as to when DirecTV Now might get CBS, though he did offhandedly confirm that the network is in talks to bring its programming to YouTube Unplugged, which, as Moonves noted, “hasn’t been announced yet.” Sorry, Google! Cat’s out of the bag!
