Sean McManus Quotations

I would have liked more close games, obviously. We switched around a lot. It was a clean, good start. I hope we get better games tonight and I'm hoping with the marquee teams we have tomorrow and going into the weekend, we'll have closer action on the court.

I was surprised when Leslie came to me to talk about it.

Maybe it's partially because of my sports background, but I am unbelievably competitive. Being in third place, whether it's sports, entertainment or news, is not acceptable.

If Bob wanted to do this, we probably wouldn't be having this discussion right now.

For us, sports is a very challenging but successful business.

Having a roster of the best on-air talent in the business remains a top priority at CBS Sports. James Brown is a viewer favorite in terms of knowledge, credibility and likeability. His return to CBS Sports improves the team in the studio and in the field.

I always enjoy watching the machinations of the television sports industry. But I do it with a feeling of relaxation because we have gotten our guys lined up for the next six years. We went through the same process NBC and FOX are still going through, only we did it six months to a year ago.

People of that age simply don't watch TV (news) or get their news in that way.

Jim, Lara and Byron are three of the most dedicated reporters and skilled storytellers in the business. These high-profile assignments signal the depth of our commitment to covering Washington, international news and the national scene.

I think we can invigorate the place, just like we did at CBS Sports eight years ago,

We can spend whatever we want to acquire rights. But at a minimum, we have to make $1 on the deal.

I would much rather take a little extra time to make sure we do it right,

The amount of money that we pay to the anchor will not have any effect on the amount of money we spend on other resources. There is not a direct comparison between how much money we pay an anchor person or a correspondent of CBS News and our resources around the world.

Bob is respected. He's trusted, and he's very, very comfortable giving the news. We think at CBS News that the news should be delivered in a respectful and a comfortable way, not as if you were preaching the gospel from Mount Olympus.

Bob Schieffer is having a resurgence. Bob is respected. He's trusted, and he's very, very comfortable giving the news. People are starting to appreciate that, and that's part of the reason for our improved numbers.

Some people just jump off the screen and have star value. Lara Logan falls in that category.

There should be at any time at any network a small group of people who ... can fill in the (anchor) job quite admirably, but we quite honestly are not in that situation at CBS news.

There are a number of different timetables. We have them, but I just can't, at the moment, talk about them.

The Web is a great opportunity in terms of revenue generation and for our correspondents to produce a lot of programming.

This is an enormously proud day for all of us at CBS News. Katie joining our team signifies not only her commitment to doing first-rate journalism, but our strong commitment to producing the highest quality work done by the best reporters, producers and writers in television news. She is a key ingredient as we work towards our goal of making CBS News the number one news organization in America. This organization was built on quality and integrity, and Katie and her CBS News colleagues will continue to carry that legacy into the 21st century. I would also like to offer our deepest thanks to Bob Schieffer for his outstanding work on the evening broadcast and look forward to his continuing role at CBS News.

I'm a very competitive person. . . . I'm not going to sleep well until we're out of third place.

I'm pretty good at doing Super Bowls and Final Fours, ... I understand those are different from elections or conventions, but there are more similarities than differences. I pride myself on really good storytelling. We do a lot of really good reporting, although the subject matter may be different, steroids or coaching changes.

I hope to prove these people wrong very, very quickly.

I have tremendous respect for Jim's talents and his accomplishments as leader of the broadcast, and he should be very proud of the job he did, ... Jim and I will continue to discuss his future role at CBS News.

because he wants to be part of the NBC committee that picks Sunday night games.

All I can say is that it's relatively few (candidates), just because there are relatively few people out there that have the profile and the reputations and the experience to do the job. So,de facto, it's a very, very small number of people.

It's not acceptable to be No. 3. I'm not going to rest easily until we improve both the quality and the ratings of all our shows.