EXCLUSIVE: Watch Les Moonves Deposition

EXCLUSIVE… UPDATE: Deadline has obtained exclusively Les Moonves’ video-taped deposition from September 1, 2011, in the Golden Globes trial. Four-parter:

PART ONE

PART TWO

PART THREE

PART FOUR

Moonves’ deposition reveals CBS had serious talks to take away the Golden Globes from NBC. His conversations were with Dick Clark Prods CEO Mark Shapiro and then-Hollywood Foreign Press Association president Philip Berk. Moonves’ deposition will play at the trial later this week. First, Moonves’ calendar shows him having a lunch meeting with Berk on July 14, 2010 and a separate meeting with Shapiro on November 19, 2010. Moonves said in the deposition that he told Shapiro that it would be “better” for the awards show to be broadcast on “the first-place network… than it would be on the fourth-place network’.

In recalling the meeting, Moonves noted: “I’m paid a lot of money to observe human behavior, and he [Shapiro] seemed very happy with my response.” According to Moonves’ deposition, the DCP CEO said “we’d rather it be with you than with them.” Moonves was unhappy CBS lost out. “Well, if somebody tells you they want to have dinner with you as soon as they break up with their current wife, and then they remarry without giving you an excuse, you know, it’s a little surprising.” Here’s the excerpt:

Freelance journalist Dominic Patten is covering the trial for Deadline.