Viacom

*This article is about the incarnation of Viacom from 2006 to 2019. For the original incarnation of Viacom that became CBS Corporation, see Viacom (original). For the current state of said company since 2005, see CBS Corporation. For the company that controls both the new Viacom and CBS Corporation, see National Amusements.*

## Viacom Inc.

### Traded as

NASDAQ: VIA Class A
NASDAQ: VIAB Class B
S&P 500 Component (VIAB)
Russell 1000 Component (VIA, VIAB)

### Succeeded by

ViacomCBS
(Filmed entertainment and digital media)
 ViacomCBS
(Television production, US cable networks, and international networks)

### Headquarters

One Astor Plaza, Manhattan, New York City, New York, U.S.

### Key people

Sumner Redstone
(Chairman Emeritus)
Thomas J. May
(Chairman)
Robert Bakish
(President and CEO)

### Products

Cable television
Broadcasting
Radio
Publishing
Motion pictures
Games
Podcasts
Web portals

### Divisions

Viacom Media Networks
Viacom International
Media Networks
Paramount Pictures
Viacom Digital Studios

### Subsidaries

Bellator MMA
WhoSay
VidCon
AwesomenessTV
Rainbow S.r.l. (30%)
Pluto TV

### Website

www.viacom.com

**Viacom Inc.** was an American multinational mass media conglomerate with interests primarily in film and television. It was the world's ninth largest broadcasting, cable, and media company in terms of revenue, and had headquarters in New York City. Voting control of Viacom was held by National Amusements, Inc., a privately owned theater company controlled by billionaire Sumner Redstone, who also held a controlling stake in CBS Corporation.

Present-day Viacom was created as a spin-off from the original company, which was renamed as **CBS Corporation** afterwards, on December 31, 2005. The latter currently retained control of the over-the-air broadcasting, TV production, subscription pay television, and publishing assets, which were previously owned by the original Viacom. Comprising BET Networks, Viacom Media Networks, and Paramount Pictures, Viacom operated approximately 170 networks, reaching approximately 700 million subscribers in approximately 160 countries.

## History

### Early years

*Main article: Viacom (original)*
In March 2005, the prior Viacom announced plans of looking into splitting the company into two publicly traded companies because of a stagnating stock price and the rivalry between Leslie Moonves and Tom Freston, longtime heads of CBS and MTV Networks respectively. In addition, the company was facing issues after MTV was banned from producing any more Super Bowl halftime shows after the Super Bowl Halftime Show controversy of 2004.

After the departure of Mel Karmazin in 2004, Sumner Redstone, who served as chairman and chief executive officer, decided to split the offices of president and chief operating officer between Moonves and Freston. Redstone was set to retire in the near future, and a split was seen as a creative solution to the matter of replacing him. It was also intended to provide alternative investments that would be more appealing to investors: one a high cash flow, lower growth company that could afford to pay a substantial dividend and the other a growing company that would have greater investment opportunities and therefore would not be expected to pay a dividend.

A new company, the present Viacom, was created and was headed by Freston. It comprises BET Networks, MTV Networks, and Paramount Pictures Corporation.

### 2000s

In June 2005, Viacom announced its purchase of Neopets, a virtual pet website, along with GameTrailers, GoCityKids, and IFILM. That December, Paramount announced it would acquire DreamWorks. All indications were that the whole of DreamWorks—both live-comedy film and TV studios, albeit not the DreamWorks archive (which was sold to a group led by George Soros in March 2006) nor the animated unit (which was not part of the deal)—would remain owned by Viacom, even though CBS acquired Paramount's television studio.

On February 1, 2006, Paramount completed its acquisition of DreamWorks. On April 24, Viacom obtained Xfire. In August, just hours before announcing its most recent quarterly earnings, Viacom announced that it had acquired Atom Entertainment for $200 million. In September, Viacom acquired game developer Harmonix for $175 million.

In February 2007, Viacom ordered leaked copyrighted video clips be taken off the video-sharing service YouTube for copyright reasons. On February 21, Viacom publicly announced they would be offering free online access to their own material through Silicon Valley's distributor Joost.

On May 21, 2007, Viacom entered into a 50–50 joint venture with Indian media company Network 18 to form Viacom 18 which will house Viacom's existing channels in India: MTV, VH1 and Nick as well as Network 18's Bollywood movie business. All future Viacom content for India and new ventures such as a Hindi entertainment channel and a Hindi movie channel would be housed in this joint venture.

On December 19, 2007, Viacom signed a five-year, $500 million contract with Microsoft that included content sharing and advertisement. The deal allowed Microsoft to license many shows from Viacom owned cable television and film studios for use on Xbox Live and MSN. The deal also made Viacom a preferred publisher partner for casual game development and distribution through MSN and Windows. On the advertisement side of the deal, Microsoft's Atlas ad-serving division became the exclusive provider of previously unsold advertising inventory on Viacom owned websites. Also, Microsoft purchased a large amount of advertising on Viacom owned broadcasts and online networks. Finally, Microsoft would also collaborate on promotions and sponsorships for MTV and BET award shows, two Viacom owned cable networks.

On December 4, 2008, Viacom announced layoffs of 850 personnel, or 7% of their workforce. At the end of the year, Time Warner Cable (along with partner Bright House Networks) and Viacom's MTV Networks could not come to terms for the renewal of any Viacom channel beyond the end of year. Time Warner Cable's operations include New York City and Los Angeles, with Bright House including the Tampa Bay and Orlando markets, both top-20 markets. This blackout was narrowly avoided when a zero-hour deal was reached shortly after midnight on January 1, 2009.

On December 7, 2009, Viacom sold its stake in MTV Brasil to Grupo Abril along with rights to the brand. Details on the deal were not disclosed.

### 2010s

In February 2011, Hulu and Viacom announced the return of *The Daily Show with Jon Stewart* and *The Colbert Report* to Hulu, along with shows from the Viacom library. Nickelodeon's shows are not part of this deal. Also that month, Viacom invested in Rainbow S.r.l., an Italian children's animated and consumer products company best known for the *Winx Club* franchise.

Later, in October 2011, Viacom purchased a majority stake in Bellator Fighting Championships. Spike TV started to air Bellator in 2013, after the rights to the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) library ended in 2012.

On December 1, 2011, the company stopped trading on the New York Stock Exchange and began listing its securities on NASDAQ instead. The stock ticker symbols are the same as that used while the company was on the NYSE.

On July 10, 2012, during contract negotiations over raising carrier rates the U.S. satellite TV provider, DirecTV's executives approached Viacom with a new proposal and a request to continue broadcasting 17 of Viacom's television networks (including Nickelodeon, MTV, Logo, and Comedy Central) during talks, but received no response and thus Viacom ceased transmission to DirecTV's 20 million subscribers. On July 11, in a counter response to DirecTV advising its subscribers to view original programming from the affected networks online, Viacom scaled back access to recent episodes of Viacom-owned program content available to the websites of its networks. Viacom described this as a "temporary slimdown" until a new carriage deal with DirecTV was reached. Viacom and DirecTV reached an agreement on July 20 to return the interrupted programming.
In 2012 CEO Phillip Dauman began to report Viacom's intentions to bundle past programming and make it available on-demand via services like Hulu.

On April 1, 2014, Cable One removed 15 channels owned by Viacom (MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, and TV Land) off after the two companies failed to reach an agreement. Channels were replaced with other networks, including BBC America, Sprout, SundanceTV, IFC, Investigation Discovery, TV One, CMP/TV, National Geographic Channel, and TheBlaze. The change has been deemed permanent.

On May 1, 2014, Viacom announced it had agreed to take over the British broadcaster Channel 5 from Northern & Shell, the media group owned by the British newspaper publisher Richard Desmond. Viacom becomes the first American media company to take over a British broadcaster with a public service remit. The purchase of Channel 5 closed on September 10, 2014.

On October 1, 2014, Suddenlink Communications, removed channels owned by Viacom off after the two companies failed to reach an agreement. Channels were replaced with other networks including Sprout, FXX, Pivot, Uplifting Entertainment, Investigation Discovery, OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network, Women's Entertainment, and TheBlaze.
On August 20, 2016, a settlement between Sumner and Shari Redstone and Philippe Dauman has been reached that will have him resign as chief executive officer and be replaced with Thomas E. Dooley as interim CEO. Dauman will continue to serve as chairman until September 13. On May 25, 2017, Viacom channels returned to Suddenlink after nearly 3 years of absence.

In November 2016, Viacom bought Argentine television network Telefe.

In December 2016, the Viacom board appointed Robert Bakish as acting CEO. His appointment as President and CEO was made permanent on December 12, 2016.

Following the Weinstein effect, Viacom was listed as one of 22 potential buyers that were interested in acquiring The Weinstein Company. They have lost the bid, and on March 1, 2018, it was announced that Maria Contreras-Sweet will acquire all of TWC's assets for $500 million.

In November 2017, Viacom announced the opening of a new digital content division named Viacom Digital Studios. The company has hired former AwesomenessTV chief business officer Kelly Day to lead the studio. Day began her duties on November 20.

In February 2018, Viacom announced their plans to acquire the internet video conference VidCon in an effort to reach out to youth audiences (in a similar way to Viacom's Nickelodeon and MTV channels).

In the same month, Viacom announced that they would launch an official Viacom streaming service in fall 2018, in another effort by Bakish to revitalize the company. This streaming service will support ads (similar to Hulu) and is expected to include TV series from Viacom Media Networks that haven't been available on other services, such as Hulu or Amazon Prime Video. Bakish has stated that the streaming service will serve as a "compliment" to OTT MVPDs, rather than a replacement.

In April 2018, Viacom hosted its first presentation at the annual Digital Content NewFronts, where they announced new original content for sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat. They also announced the expansion of VidCon to London in 2019 at the same conference.

On July 25, Viacom announced that it was in talks to acquire AwesomenessTV for a fraction of the company's $650 million valuation in 2016. Two days later on July 27, Viacom officially acquired the company for $25 million. Jordan Levin will leave his position as CEO of AwesomenessTV following the acquisition.

## Viacom International

As with the old Viacom, the current company owns Viacom International, which is the formal owner of copyrights and trademarks associated with Viacom's corporate websites and its cable networks, specifically Viacom Media Networks, and is the division which licenses the product rights for their various properties. Before the merger with CBS Corporation in 1999, it also acted as the licensee company for Viacom's owned television stations; for instance New Britain, Connecticut station WVIT, currently an NBC owned and operated station for the Hartford market owned by Viacom from 1978 until 1997, took their call letters from Viacom International.

Viacom International also continues to focus on its own in-house productions made for its various networks such as MTV, VH1, and Nickelodeon. Viacom International is a partner in Comedy Partners, the Viacom subsidiary which owns Comedy Central. The other partner is the parent company itself, as former owner of the Ha! network; the "Comedy Partners" name dates to when Viacom and Time Warner co-owned Comedy Central until 2003 as a merger of Ha! and Time Warner's Comedy Channel.

## Assets

*Main article: List of assets owned by Viacom*
**Film production and distribution**

* Paramount Pictures
* Paramount Players
* Paramount Animation
* Viacom Media Networks branded labels
	+ Comedy Central Films
	+ MTV Films
	+ Nickelodeon Movies

**Television production and distribution**

* Paramount Television
* Viacom Media Networks production studios
	+ Nickelodeon Animation Studio
	+ MTV Studios
* Rainbow S.r.l. (30%)
	+ Bardel Entertainment

**Internet production and distribution**

* Viacom Digital Studios
	+ AwesomenessTV

**Television networks**

* BET
	+ BET Her
	+ BET Jams
	+ BET Soul
* Channel 5 (UK)
	+ 5Star
	+ 5USA
	+ 5Spike
	+ 5Select
* CMT
	+ CMT Music
* Comedy Central
* Logo TV
* MTV
	+ MTV2
	+ MTV Tres
	+ MTVU
	+ MTV Classic
	+ MTV Live
* Nickelodeon
	+ Nick at Nite
	+ Nick Jr.
	+ NickMusic
	+ Nicktoons
	+ Noggin (brand)
* Paramount Network
* TeenNick
* Telefe (Argentina)
* TV Land
* VH1

Recording Labels

* Comedy Central Records
* Nick Records

**Streaming music service**

* MusicQubed

## See also

* List of conglomerates
* Viacom (original)
* CBS Corporation
* Gulf+Western
* Paramount Communications
* Paramount Pictures