Who is viacom parent company

It would have meant a loss of viewership in major locations like New York City and Los Angeles and was only avoided when a zero-hour deal was reached on the 1st of January, Its securities were then listed on Nasdaq with the same stock ticker symbols in use as were on the NYSE. In , Viacom took over Channel 5, a British broadcaster, and became the first American media company to do so with a public service remit.

His position was soon made permanent and he was also appointed as the president. In , the opening of Viacom Digital Studios was announced. In the following year, Viacom aimed at expanding its client base to include younger viewers and announced that they would be acquiring VidCon, an online video conference platform.

By , Viacom planned to launch an official streaming service. It would support advertisements and would include all the shows and movies owned by Viacom Media Networks that are not available on other streaming platforms. Re-merger of Viacom and CBS which was finalized in was proposed by National Amusements as early as but the suggestion was never followed through. By , there were media reports that a re-merger was on the horizon.

Redstone was also accused of preventing CBS to be taken over by Verizon Communications which would have been advantageous for the company shareholders. Even though the companies delayed the re-merger, it was eventually completed and the combined company came to be called ViacomCBS. Sahri Redstone fixed herself permanently in the management of the combined company as she was appointed chairwoman.

National Amusements approved the deal and it was completed in December It will have a growing presence in the streaming space and access to a library stocked with more than , television episodes and more than 3, movie titles. The company also will have international exposure with networks in Britain, Australia and Argentina. The merger, which was ratified overwhelmingly by the boards of both companies, requires the approval of government regulators, a process that is expected to take several months.

The two companies have had a long and often turbulent history. The marriage lasted just six years. In , Redstone divided his empire , saying the two halves could stand on their own. The billionaire from Boston was convinced the future was brighter for his Viacom, which owned cable TV channels and Paramount. The breakup benefited Redstone, too, because he became controlling shareholder and executive chairman of two companies.

In the last several years, audience behavior changed drastically. Younger viewers were the first to flee traditional TV. Now, teenagers and young adults spend more time playing video games, watching video clips on their phones or shows from streaming services like Netflix and Hulu than MTV.

Amid the migration, Viacom made a series of management blunders, including awarding its top executives hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation while under-investing in programming. Paramount also struggled under the leadership of the late Brad Grey, weathering a period of flops and enormous losses. Viacom lost more than half its value.

She installed Bakish as chief executive of Viacom. Bakish overhauled the management of the moribund Paramount film studio and tossed out senior management at the TV channels. In its most recent fiscal quarter, Viacom hit a milestone when it reported that domestic advertising revenue had increased for the first time in five years. He might be an anomaly in show business, which is filled with self-promoters, but he is a classic example of still waters run deep.

Amid the high-stakes legal fight, CBS became engulfed in a scandal. A dozen women accused Moonves of sexual harassment or assault. Furthermore, when Congress deregulated cable in , prices for cable franchises soared. When Redstone sold some of Viacom's assets to help pay off its debt, he was thus able to get large sums for them. Further, after Redstone restructured MTV and installed a more aggressive advertising-sales staff, MTV experienced continued growth, against the expectations of many industry analysts.

In , for example, the MTV Networks won 15 percent of all dollars spent on cable advertising. These successes enabled Redstone and Biondi to significantly cut Viacom's debt by September and negotiate more favorable terms on its loans.

Under its new leadership Viacom branched out. Along with Hearst Corp. These films first appeared on Showtime. Viacom's television productions also achieved success after years of mixed results.

It also added the rights for A Different World and Roseanne to its rerun stable. In addition, Viacom continued to spend heavily on new and acquired productions for Nickelodeon and MTV. TCI had six million subscribers, and Viacom hoped the purchase would give TCI increased incentive to market Showtime, thus giving the network a wider distribution. By Viacom owned five television stations, 14 cable franchises, and nine radio stations.

In , Viacom introduced a plan that halved the cost of Showtime, but forced cable operators to dramatically increase the number of subscriptions to it. This strategy was designed to increase Showtime's market share at a time when many consumers were starting to feel that pay-TV channels were no longer worth their price.

Both channels provided comedy programs, but HA! Showtime had filed the lawsuit in , 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.

The suit attracted wide attention and generated much negative publicity for the cable industry. In August the suit was finally settled out of court, after having cost both sides tens of millions of dollars in legal fees. Furthermore, the two sides also agreed to a joint marketing campaign to revive the image of cable, which had suffered since deregulation. Also during this time, in a move that surprised many industry analysts, HBO and Viacom agreed to merge their struggling comedy networks, HA!

Overall, Viacom appeared to be thriving. Nickelodeon, meanwhile, was going to However, by the mids, Redstone was ready for a new challenge. The year-old media mogul found it by expanding Viacom into the motion picture and video rental markets. The acquisition vastly expanded the company's presence in the entertainment business, giving it a motion picture library that included the classics The Ten Commandments and The Godfather and an entre into the premier movie market.

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. The Blockbuster group of subsidiaries was one of Viacom's most quickly growing enterprises; by , Blockbuster boasted 60 million cardholders worldwide and over 6, music and video stores. Viacom's acquisition of Paramount and Blockbuster gave the company thriving new enterprises, but left the company in significant debt.

To both relieve that debt and focus the company's energies, Viacom divested itself of several segments of its business. In , the company spun off its cable systems in a deal with TCI. The following year, Viacom left the radio broadcasting business by selling its ten radio stations to Evergreen Media Corporation. Although Viacom was no longer a cable service provider, and it had expanded into the motion picture and video rental market, its cable networks remained a significant portion of its business.

By June , Viacom had more than recovered from the hit it had taken from the Blockbuster purchase. A new strategy for Blockbuster drove up its sagging market share. Furthermore, Viacom had been on a global expansion drive, selling broadcast rights to Paramount's film library, for example.

MTV was becoming an international brand as well.