Viacom, Incorporated Class A (VIA)
Company Information
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YouTube AnonymousJul 15 2008
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Red-Faced RedstoneJun 19 2008
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Hooray for Bollywood!Jun 18 2008
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Geraldine LaybourneJan 24 2008
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Top 10 Business Scandals of 2007Nov 19 2007
Portfolio.com Overview
WHERE THEY COME FROM
Viacom might not exist if the F.C.C. had permitted CBS to reap the limitless rewards of I Love Lucy and Honeymooners reruns. In 1971, after the feds ruled that networks couldn’t own the companies that syndicated their programs, CBS spun off its syndication division as Viacom. Over the next 15 years, Viacom picked up a handful of television and radio stations, including MTV. But it remained a modest media group until 1987, when a Boston businessman used a sizable chunk of the earnings from his family’s cinema chain to become Viacom’s majority shareholder. His name:
Sumner Redstone.
WHAT THEY DO
With MTV shows including Total Request Live and My Super Sweet 16, Viacom fills the after-school time of teens—as it has since it bought the channel in 1985. Viacom’s other cable properties include Comedy Central, BET, and Nickelodeon. On the film side, it owns blockbuster heavyweight Paramount, which in turn owns DreamWorks.
WHAT THEY GOT RIGHT
Redstone famously goes with his gut—advisers and analysts are relevant only when their opinions mirror his own—and his aggressive moves have yielded key victories for Viacom.
The company has bet big on expansion. Redstone nurtured MTV into the world’s largest network by green-lighting spin-off channels and stations around the globe. Having enjoyed a lock on the youth audience since it changed the media landscape in the 1980s, MTV has made the transition from a Top 40 video format to one dominated by original programming—most notably, reality shows like The Real World.
Redstone moves quickly when opportunities arise. He bought Paramount in 1994 after a prolonged bidding war with
Barry Diller, taking just four days to approve the strategy for an eleventh-hour clinching bid. In 2005, Paramount played the sharp lothario to Universal’s bumbling suitor in the fight for DreamWorks. In a week, Redstone procured the offer that made the studio swoon; G.E.’s Universal, which had wooed it for nine months, was left in the dust.
Redstone also led Viacom to a $39.8 billion reunion with CBS in 2000. The merger gave Viacom a majority interest in Infinity Broadcasting, CBS’s radio giant, and added TNN and CMT to the cable family. Then, at the close of 2005, Redstone reinstated the split, grouping cable and film entities under the Viacom banner and network and radio divisions under CBS. Redstone guessed the separation would free Viacom from CBS’s stagnant growth. He was right; by the end of Viacom’s second quarter after the split, the company’s stock was up 24 percent.
WHAT THEY GOT WRONG
Viacom is struggling with its new-media identity. Purchases like Neopets.com, an interactive pet site, and GoCityKids.com, a Citysearch for tykes, are relative unknowns. And MTV Overdrive, the network’s broadband video channel, hasn’t managed to catch on, despite appealing features like live-streamed after-shows and an online game linked to the popular Laguna Beach series. But Redstone is really fuming over Viacom’s failure to buy the already-hot internet property MySpace. Enraged by C.E.O. Tom Freston’s sluggishness in the race for the site, which ultimately went to Redstone’s nemesis Rupert Murdoch, Redstone replaced him with Philippe Dauman, who will seek to improve Viacom’s Web portfolio.
WHAT'S NEXT
He’ll have to work harder to integrate his most important purchase in recent history, DreamWorks SKG. A tug-of-war for creative control has gotten the Viacom-DreamWorks relationship off to a strained start—and since Viacom’s profits more than tripled after acquiring the studio, it’s in Redstone’s best interests to keep its top egos afloat. —Megan Angelo
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YouTube Anonymous
Google and Viacom reach privacy deal on user data.Jul 15 2008 -
Red-Faced Redstone
A DreamWorks nightmare: Viacom leader loses another one, as Spielberg & Co. move toward the exit.Jun 19 2008 -
Hooray for Bollywood!
DreamWorks team is said to be near a deal with Indian giant.
Jun 18 2008 -
Geraldine Laybourne
After the sale of Oxygen Media, its co-founder looks back at the fast-changing world of cable and the internet.
Jan 24 2008 -
Top 10 Business Scandals of 2007
Portfolio.com salutes the most embarrassing business escapades of the year.
Nov 19 2007
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The Jonas Brothers to perform at this year's VMAs
AP
Jul 21 2008
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Lions Gate to share ad revenue on clips on YouTube
AP
Jul 16 2008
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YouTube, Viacom agree to mask viewer data
AP
Jul 15 2008
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Paramount drops $450 million movie financing deal
AP
Jul 15 2008
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YouTube personal data will be masked in info handed to Viacom
East Bay
Jul 15 2008
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Lawyers in YouTube lawsuit reach user privacy deal
Reuters
Jul 15 2008
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Viacom's Redstone in talks to buy out daughter
Reuters
Jul 10 2008
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Privacy protections disappear with a judge's order
AP
Jul 10 2008
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Uncertainty aplenty as Web, media leaders convene
AP
Jul 08 2008
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Digital threat prompts movie industry downgrade
AP
Jul 07 2008
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Late Breaks: Rathergate: The Movie?
Jul 22 2008
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Idle Chatter: Don't Call Me Daughter
Jul 10 2008
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Last Bytes: Google, YouTube, Viacom, Facebook, more...
Jul 03 2008
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What You Watched on YouTube
Jul 03 2008
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Extra Credit, Thursday Edition
Jul 03 2008
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AddictingGames to Reward Game Developers With Cash Bonuses Jul-24-2008, 01:07PM EDT
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AddictingGames to Honor Best in Online Games With New Multiplatform Awards Event, Coming Summer 2009 Jul-24-2008, 09:55AM EDT
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Spike TV To Re-broadcast UFC 84 Saturday, July 26 at 9PM ET/PT Jul-24-2008, 09:00AM EDT
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Viacom Vows To Protect YouTube Users' Anonymity
(Information Week)Jul 24 2008 -
Lawyers In YouTube Lawsuit Reach User Privacy Deal
(Information Week)Jul 24 2008 -
Jul 24 2008
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Analysts expect Q2 pain
(Hollywood Reporter)Jul 23 2008 -
Pete Townshend Muses on Rock Honors, Smashing Computers, Eddie Vedder in E-Mail to Rolling Stone
(Rolling Stone)Jul 23 2008 -
Is Content Still King in the Digital Age?
(SeekingAlpha)Jul 23 2008 -
Judge orders YouTube to reveal 12TB of user logs
(ZDnet Australia)Jul 23 2008 -
Jul 22 2008
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Jul 24 2008
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President Bush Sums Up the Financial Crisis the Best Way He Knows How
(Daily Intelligencer - New York Magazine)Jul 23 2008 -
Jul 22 2008
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Late Breaks: Rathergate: The Movie?
(Portfolio.com: Mixed Media)Jul 22 2008 -
The Legacy Players: Daumann and Seidenberg Try to Brainstorm
(Paid Content)Jul 22 2008
Employees
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