viacom history

It also added the rights for A Different World and Roseanne to its rerun stable. In order to eliminate this duplication, Showtime gained exclusive rights to several popular films and guaranteed its customers a new film, unavailable on other movie channels, every week.

primarily showed episodes of old sitcoms, while the Comedy Channel showed excerpts from sitcoms, movies, and stand-up comedy routines. With the cable communications alone, Viacom reaches out to as many as 170 networks in nearly 160 countries as of today. "Not until 1997 did Jordan and Karmazin lead CBS back into cable by buying two music channels, the Nashville Network and County Music Television, for $1.5 billion," Marc Gunther wrote for Fortune. However, by the mid-1990s, Redstone was ready for a new challenge. Time Warner also agreed to more widely distribute Showtime and The Movie Channel on Time Warner's cable systems, the second largest in the United States. As part of the deal Viacom paid Warner $500 million in cash and $18 million in stock warrants. In 1973, Viacom had 47,000 subscribers on Long Island, New York, but a drive to find 2,000 more added only 250. The growth rate of syndication had declined, however, while that for cable had increased, and by 1982 Viacom had added 450,000 subscribers to the 90,000 it inherited from CBS, making it the ninth largest cable operator in the United States. Rules,", Impoco, Jim, "America's Hippest Grandpa,", Lazaroff, Leon, "Viacom Prepares to Battle FCC over $550,000 Indecency Fine,", Lenzner, Robert, and Peter Newcomb, "The Vindication of Sumner Redstone,", Lieberman, David, "Is Viacom Ready to Channel the World? H It formally became a separate company in 1971 when CBS distributed Viacom's stock to its stockholders at the rate of one share for every seven shares of CBS stock.

It had about 90,000 cable subscribers, making it one of the largest cable operators in the United States. Copyright (c) 2019 Company-Histories.com. In 1999, Redstone held about $9 billion worth of Viacom shares. As consumers, we often take for granted all the hard work that goes into building a great company. However, Showtime lost about 300,000 customers between March 1985 and March 1986, and cash flow dropped dramatically.

The tide turned thanks to CEO Mel Karmazin and his predecessor Michael Jordan. It also had an enviable stable of popular, previously-run CBS television series, including I Love Lucy, available for syndication, which accounted for a sizable percentage of Viacom's income. In the early 1980s Viacom started on a program of rapid growth across a range of media categories. The entertainment segment includes: Paramount Pictures, a producer and distributor of motion pictures since 1912; venerable publisher Simon & Schuster; and Paramount Parks' theme attractions. Nevertheless, Viacom earned $5.5 million that year on sales of $58.5 million. The following year, Viacom left the radio broadcasting business by selling its ten radio stations to Evergreen Media Corporation.

When Redstone sold some of Viacom's assets to help pay off its debt, he was thus able to get large sums for them. ET on Seeking Alpha.

Redstone named MTV's Tom Freston and CBS's Leslie Moonves co-presidents, setting up a competition between them for his heir apparent.
No one can force him out, because he controls 71% of the shareholder votes at $27 billion-a-year Viacom.". Showtime had filed the lawsuit in 1989, alleging that HBO was trying to put Showtime out of business by intimidating cable systems that carried Showtime and by trying to corner the market on Hollywood films to prevent competitors from airing them. MTV Networks, which included MTV, Nickelodeon, and VH1, accounted for almost $625 million in operating profits in 1997, approximately 32 percent of Viacom's estimated earnings for the year. The two companies considered merging their comedy offerings, but HBO parent Time Warner would only move forward with the idea if Viacom agreed to settle its $2.4 billion antitrust suit against HBO. J.P. Morgan boosts target on Viacom, pointing to streaming valuation. Both channels provided comedy programs, but HA!

It also bought Video Corp. of America for $16 million. Infinity Radio owns and operates a wealth of radio stations. In the next few years Nickelodeon went from being the least popular channel on basic cable to the most popular. Besides having a far larger share of the market, HBO already featured many of the films shown by Showtime and The Movie Channel, removing some of the incentive for subscribing to both groups of services.

The "Tiffany Network" steered away from the medium after that while its direct competitors, ABC, NBC, and Fox, made inroads. The 70-year-old media mogul found it by expanding Viacom into the motion picture and video rental markets.

Both channels started with subscriber bases in the low millions, and most industry analysts believed that only one of them would survive; Viacom management expected to lose as much as $100 million over a three-year period before HA! Moreover, Redstone wanted back some of the power he had relinquished. Later that same year, the company again expanded into a new segment of the entertainment industry by acquiring Blockbuster, the owner, operator, and franchiser of thousands of video and music stores. Despite the three-year deal they arrived at in 2003, in June 2004 Karmazin resigned. By 1982 Showtime had 3.4 million subscribers, earning about $10 million on sales of $140 million, and was seeking to distinguish itself from other pay-TV sources by offering its own series of programs. The first incarnation of Viacom was created in 1952 as the television syndication division of CBS; it was spun off in 1971.In 1999, Viacom acquired its former parent, then named CBS Corporation (formerly Westinghouse Electric).In January 2006, the first Viacom was spun off into two entities, CBS Corporation and the second incarnation of Viacom.

Privacy Policy, Berkowitz, Harry, "Company President Leaves, Karmazin Steps Down at Viacom, Surprise Resignation Follows Often-Rocky Relationship with CEO Redstone,", Flint, Joe, "Final Cut: Karmazin Leaves Post, Ending a Stormy Marriage,", Gubernick, Lisa, "Sumner Redstone Scores Again,", Gunther, Marc, "Behind the Shakeup at Viacom,", ------, "This Gang Controls Your Kids' Brains,", ------, "Sumner ;oh Mel: CBS, Viacom, and the Triumph of Cable,", ------, "Viacom: Redstone's Remarkable Ride to the Top,", "How Much for Ads on Children's TV? In October 1989, Viacom sold 50 percent of Showtime to TCI, a cable systems operator, for $225 million.

Even so, it was rough going at first, and Viacom lost $154.4 million in 1987, though its sales increased to about $1 billion. The following year it worked out a deal with Teleprompter Corp., then the largest cable systems operator in the United States, with the result that Teleprompter offered its customers Showtime rather than HBO. Because management felt that cable operations were not a strong enough engine for that growth, Viacom looked to communications and entertainment.
That year Viacom earned $30.9 million on revenue of $320 million. Consequently, the cost of programming was raised, and Showtime was forced to increase marketing expenditures to make certain potential viewers were aware of the new policy. The heydays of network television were in the past.

Viacom also offered $33.50 a share for the one-third of MTV stock that was publicly held. CBS's cash flow for the year would come from cable, radio, stations, and billboards. ViacomCBS Stays All In … Viacom also introduced "Nick at Night," a block of classic sitcoms aired late in the evening, popular among an adult audience. Redstone's banks were demanding $450 million in interest in the first two years following the takeover, but several fortuitous events aided him in paying off this debt. Principal Competitors: News Corp.; Time Warner; Walt Disney. Some industry analysts felt that he had vastly overpaid, but Redstone believed Viacom had strong growth potential. Gunther wrote for Fortune, "Until now the 81-year-old Redstone had stubbornly refused to set a date for his retirement. It also started its own production operations in 1989, Viacom Pictures, which produced about ten feature films in 1989 at a cost of about $4 million a film. Company President Terrence A. Elkes told Business Week that Viacom hoped to become a billion-dollar company in three to five years.

Further, after Redstone restructured MTV and installed a more aggressive advertising-sales staff, MTV experienced continued growth, against the expectations of many industry analysts. Viacom Outdoor is engaged in display advertising.

Viacom, an acronym of Video & Audio Communications, may refer to: Viacom (1952–2006), an American media conglomerate; Viacom (2005–2019), a company spun off from the original Viacom; ViacomCBS, a corporation formed by the merger of CBS Corporation and the second incarnation of Viacom on December 4, 2019

The approximately $1.1 billion deal reduced Viacom's debt even further. Despite a federal ruling that removed many restrictions on the choice of movies and sports available on pay-TV during this time and allowed a wider variety of programming, Showtime lost $825,000 in 1977. Cable systems were a capital-intensive business, and Viacom constantly invested money in building its cable infrastructure--spending $65 million in 1981 alone, for example. Weakened by the $2 billion debt load it incurred, in part, to scare off unfriendly buyers, Viacom lost $9.9 million on sales of $919.2 million in 1986 and, ironically, became a takeover target. Showtime also obtained exclusive contracts with Paramount Pictures and Walt Disney films, which included the rights to air seven of the top ten films of 1986.

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