A post shared by American Idol (@americanidol) on May 17, 2017 at 8:03pm PDT

CBS was one of the networks that tried to buy American Idol, but they soon realized it was way too expensive and “made no sense.”

CBS chief Les Moonves told reporters, “We were offered American Idol, and we looked at it. For a couple of reasons, we didn’t like it. For one, the price is so expensive you need a 35 share [in the ratings] to break even, okay? And that’s not going to happen. Number two, as I mentioned, [making money off ownership from the] back end of these shows is becoming more important — or as important — as the front end [from making money off advertising]. We think we’re in a much stronger position [than ABC], we wouldn’t want to spend four hours of our schedule that we wouldn’t have any piece of selling any back end, that’s not necessarily financially beneficial. I’m not trying to knock ABC. We looked at it. We looked at it very seriously. The economics just made absolutely no sense for us, and for them it did.”

When it comes to revivals of old sitcoms, Les has his own opinions:

“Will & Grace, I understand the pilot is very good,” he said. “The Roseanne thing is a stunt. I think people are looking for a little bit of a shot in the arm. I don’t think ABC owns any of Roseanne so I don’t think that is a back end play. It’s a clever idea, I think it’s a good stunt I think people will tune in for it.”