CBS Paramount

CBS Paramount's headquarters at One Astor Plaza in New York City

**CBS Paramount Media LLC.** (**formerly known as ViacomCBS**) is an American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate corporation that is a division of Verizon. It was formed through the merger of the second incarnation of CBS Corporation and the second incarnation of Viacom on December 4, 2019, which were split from the first incarnation of Viacom in 2006.

The company's main assets include Paramount Studios & Networks (consisting of entertainment assets including Paramount Entertainment Group (consisting film and television studio), CBS Entertainment Group (consisting of the CBS television network, television stations, and other CBS-branded assets), domestic networks (consisting of U.S.-based basic and premium-tier cable television networks including MTV, Nickelodeon, BET, Comedy Central, and Showtime)), international networks (consisting of international versions of domestic ViacomCBS networks as well as region-specific networks), the Pluto TV ad-supported television streaming service, the Simon & Schuster book publisher, Sega Sammy Entertainment (consisting of Sammy Corporation the Japanese developer and retailer of pachinko and pachislot machines, Sega the Japanese multinational video game developer and publisher and TMS Entertainment the Japanese animation studio)

Headquartered at One Astor Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, the company operates over 170 networks and reaches approximately 700 million subscribers in approximately 160 countries, as of 2020.

## Background

Main articles: Viacom (1952–2006), CBS Corporation, and Viacom (2005–2019)

In 1952, CBS formed **CBS Television Film Sales**, a division which handled syndication rights for CBS's library of television series. This division was renamed **CBS Films** in 1958, and again renamed **CBS Enterprises Inc.** in January 1968, and finally renamed **Viacom** in 1970. In 1971, this syndication division was spun off amid new FCC rules forbidding television networks from owning syndication companies. (The rules were abolished completely in 1993.) In 1985, Viacom purchased MTV Networks & Showtime/The Movie Channel Inc. from Warner Communications and American Express. In 1986, Viacom was acquired by its present owner, theater operator company National Amusements. In 1994, Viacom acquired Paramount Communications. In 1999, Viacom made its biggest acquisition to date by announcing plans to merge with its former parent CBS Corporation (the renamed Westinghouse Electric Corporation, which had merged with CBS in 1995). The merger was completed in 2000, resulting in CBS reuniting with its former syndication division. On January 3, 2006, Viacom was split into two companies: CBS Corporation, the former's corporate successor and the spun-off Viacom company.

## History

Further information: 2019 merger of CBS and Viacom

The logos of CBS Corporation and Viacom

### Formation

On September 29, 2016, National Amusements, the parent company of CBS Corporation and Viacom, wrote to Viacom and CBS encouraging the two companies to merge back into one company. On December 12, the deal was called off.

On January 12, 2018, CNBC reported that Viacom had re-entered talks to merge back into CBS Corporation, after the merger of AT&T-Time Warner and The Walt Disney Company's proposed acquisition of most of the 21st Century Fox's assets were announced. Viacom and CBS also faced heavy competition from companies such as Netflix and Amazon. Shortly afterward, it was reported that the combined company could be a suitor for acquiring the film studio Lionsgate. Viacom and Lionsgate were both interested in acquiring The Weinstein Company. Following the Weinstein effect, Viacom was listed as one of 22 potential buyers that were interested in acquiring TWC. They lost the bid, and on March 1, 2018, it was announced that Maria Contreras-Sweet would acquire all of TWC's assets for $500 million. Lantern Capital would later acquire the studio.

On March 30, 2018, CBS made an all-stock offer slightly below Viacom's market value, insisting that its existing leadership, including long-time chairman and CEO Les Moonves, oversee the re-combined company. Viacom rejected the offer as too low, requesting a $2.8 billion increase and that Bob Bakish be maintained as president and COO under Moonves. These conflicts had resulted from Shari Redstone seeking more control over CBS and its leadership.

Eventually, on May 14, 2018, CBS Corporation sued its and Viacom's parent company National Amusements and accused Redstone of abusing her voting power in the company and forcing a merger that was not supported by it or Viacom. CBS also accused Redstone of discouraging Verizon Communications from acquiring it, which could have been beneficial to its shareholders.

On May 23, 2018, Les Moonves explained that he considered the Viacom channels to be an "albatross," and while he favored more content for CBS All Access, he believed that there were better deals for CBS than the Viacom deal, such as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Lionsgate, or Sony Pictures. Moonves also considered Bakish a threat because he did not want an ally of Shari Redstone as a board member of the combined company.

On September 9, 2018, Les Moonves exited CBS following multiple accusations of sexual assault. National Amusements agreed to make no proposal of a CBS-Viacom merger for at least two years after the date of the settlement.

On May 30, 2019, CNBC reported that CBS Corporation and Viacom would explore merger discussions in mid-June 2019. CBS's board of directors was revamped with people who were open to merging; the re-merger was made possible with the resignation of Moonves, who had opposed all merger attempts. The talks had started following rumors of CBS acquiring Starz from Lionsgate. Reports said that CBS and Viacom reportedly set August 8 as an informal deadline for reaching an agreement to recombine the two media companies. CBS announced to acquire Viacom as part of the re-merger deal for up to $15.4 billion.

On August 2, 2019, it was reported that CBS and Viacom agreed to merge back into one entity. Both companies came to an agreement on the management team for the merger, with Bob Bakish serving as CEO of the combined company with president and acting CEO of CBS, Joseph Ianniello, overseeing CBS-branded assets. On August 7, 2019, CBS and Viacom separately reported their quarterly earnings as the talks about the re-merger continued.

On May 2021 it was announced that Verizon Communications would buy ViacomCBS and rename it Paramount Media

## Company units

For a more comprehensive list, see List of assets owned by ViacomCBS.

ViacomCBS comprises four major units:

* **Studios & Networks** encompasses the company's television series and motion picture development, production and programming. The division's primary unit is the Paramount Pictures film and television studio – which also contains Paramount Home Entertainmen. Other assets include CBS Entertainment Group which consists of CBS-branded assets, including the CBS television network, CBS News, CBS Sports, CBS Studios, CBS Media Ventures, Big Ticket Television and CBS Television Stations. The unit also has a 50% interest in The CW television network joint venture co-owned by AT&T subsidiary WarnerMedia through its Warner Bros. division.
* **International Networks** encompasses certain international versions of the company's domestic channels, as well as region-specific networks, such as Channel 5 in the United Kingdom, Network 10 in Australia, and Telefe in Argentina. ViacomCBS International also owns a third of the Rainbow S.r.l. television studio in Italy, as well as a 49% stake in the Viacom 18 joint venture with TV18. This unit also includes all CBS-branded channels across Europe, which are co-owned with AMC Networks International.
* **Global Distribution Group** focuses on the global distribution of all programs produced by all ViacomCBS production studios. The division consists of ViacomCBS International Studios.

Other assets owned by ViacomCBS are the Paramount Pictures film and television studio, over-the-top ad-supported video-on-demand platform Pluto TV, book publisher Simon & Schuster, multi-genre online video conference VidCon, Bellator mixed martial arts promotor, and media and entertainment company AwesomenessTV. As of November 2019, AwesomenessTV is overseen by its co-founder Brian Robbins, an executive for ViacomCBS Domestic. The company has an undisclosed stake in FuboTV, acquired in 2020.Template:Paramount Media