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Infobox Company

company_name = Viacom, Inc.
company_logo =
company_type = Public (NYSE: VIA
NYSE: VIAB
NYSE: VNV)
company_slogan =
foundation = 2006
location_city = 1515 Broadway, New York, NY, US
Toronto and Montreal, Canada
São Paulo, Brazil

location_country =
area_served = Worldwide
key_people = Sumner Redstone| Sumner M. Redstone'''
(Chairman of the Board)
Philippe Dauman|'''Philippe P. Dauman
(President), (CEO) & (Director)
parent = National Amusements
assets = $ 22.487 billion (2008)
equity = $ 7.033 billion (2008)
homepage = Viacom.com
Viacom''' (), short for "'''Vi'''deo & '''A'''udio '''Com munications", is a United States-based media conglomerate with interests primarily in, but not limited to, cinema and cable television. As of 2010, it is the world's fourth-largest media conglomerate, behind The Walt Disney Company, Time Warner and News Corporation. The current Viacom was created on December 31, 2005 as a spinoff from CBS Corporation, which changed its name from Viacom at the same time. CBS, not Viacom, retains control of the over-the-air broadcasting, TV production, outdoor advertising, subscription pay television (Showtime) and publishing assets (Simon & Schuster) formerly owned by the larger company. However, National Amusements remains the common majority shareholder of both firms. Predecessor firms of CBS Corporation include Gulf + Western, which later became Paramount Communications Inc., and Westinghouse Electric Corporation.

History

Early years

In March 2005, the prior Viacom announced plans of looking into splitting the company into two publicly traded companies. The company was not only dealing with a stagnating stock price, but also the rivalry between Leslie Moonves and Tom Freston, longtime heads of CBS and MTV Networks, respectively. After the departure of Mel Karmazin in 2004, 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 would be a creative solution to the matter of replacing him. It was also intended to provide alternative investments that would be more appealing to different 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. The split was approved by Viacom's board June 14, 2005. The original Viacom changed its name to CBS Corporation and is headed by Moonves. It now includes Viacom's "slow growth businesses", namely CBS, The CW (formerly The WB and UPN), CBS Radio, Simon & Schuster, CBS Outdoor, Showtime, CBS Records, CBS Television Studios and most television production assets. According to some analysts, these were suffocating the growth of the MTV Networks' cable businesses. At the time of the split, CBS Corporation was also given control of Paramount Parks. CBS sold Paramount Parks to amusement parks management company Cedar Fair, L.P. on June 30, 2006. A new company, the present Viacom, and was headed by Freston. It comprises MTV Networks, BET Networks, and Paramount Pictures' movie studio and home entertainment operations. These businesses are categorized as the high-growth businesses (MTV Networks and BET Networks in particular), and if they were split into a separate company, it would be more valuable. Sumner Redstone still controls approximately 80 percent of the voting stock of both companies, and is the chairman of both companies.

2005

In June, Viacom announced its purchase of Neopets, a virtual pet website. That December, Paramount announced it would acquire DreamWorks. All indications are that the whole of DreamWorks—both live-action 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) will remain owned by Viacom, even though CBS acquired Paramount's own TV studio.

2006

On February 1, Paramount completed its long-awaited 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 dollars.

2007

In February, Viacom ordered leaked copyrighted video clips be taken off the videosharing 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 thanks to a thorough content licensing deal. On May 21, Viacom entered into a 50-50 joint venture with Indian media company Global Broadcast News 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, 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 web sites. Also, Microsoft purchased a large amount of advertising on Viacom owned broadcasts and online networks. Finally, Microsoft will also collaborate on promotions and sponsorships for MTV and BET award shows, two Viacom owned cable networks.

2008

On December 4, three weeks before Christmas, Viacom announced layoffs of 850 personnel, or 7% of their workforce.

2010

On May 5, 2010, ''The Hollywood Reporter'' revealed that Viacom's Comedy Central "is developing a whole animated series around Jesus Christ" who, according to the network, wants to escape the shadow of his "powerful but apathetic father." . in January 2010, Viacom returns in the Canadian business to have partnerships with Corus Entertainment to participate with Teletoon, YTV and Nelvana. in May 2010, Viacom started the partnership with Turner Broadcasting System for products and content, telecommunications media company Corus Entertainment is Canada's alliance with Viacom, the three alliances becomes its own group. in June 2010, Viacom, in partnership with Corus Entertainment has signed an agreement for the creation of a new channel in the future, according to these companies will have a 23% shareholder participatory Viacom and Turner. in July 2010, Viacom chief Sumner Redstone was caught on tape, trying to find the source of an apparently embarrassing leak within his own MTV. Redstone offered money and protection to a journalist if he would give up his source. Apparently Mr. Redstone had been pushing MTV management to give more airtime to a girl band called the Electric Barbarellas. 'On the message, Redstone tells the reporter that "we're not going to kill" the source, adding: "We just want to talk to him." The 87-year-old Redstone also tells the reporter he will be "well rewarded and well protected" if he gives up the source. Lauria told NBC's "Today" show Wednesday he wouldn't do it. Viacom Inc. spokesman Carl Folta confirmed to "Today" that it was Redstone's voice on the message and said the mogul had "made a mistake". http://www.mail.com/intl/Article.aspx/entertainment/0/APNews/General-Entertainment/20100721/U_US-Redstone-Source?pageid=1

Copyright complaints against YouTube

In February 2007, Viacom sent upwards of 100,000 DMCA takedown notices to the video-sharing site YouTube, alleging large-scale copyright infringement. Many YouTube users responded by creating the slogan "Fuck Viacunt". Of the 100,000, approximately 60–70 non-infringing videos were erroneously removed under the auspices of copyright infringement. On March 13, 2007, Viacom filed a US$1 billion lawsuit against Google and YouTube alleging massive copyright infringement, alleging that users frequently uploaded copyrighted material to YouTube—enough to cause a hit in revenue for Viacom and a gain in advertisement revenue for YouTube. The complaint contends that almost 160,000 unauthorized clips of Viacom’s programming have been available on YouTube and that these clips had collectively been viewed more than 1.5 billion times.

Court case

In July 2008, a judge ordered YouTube to hand over data detailing the viewing habits of every user who has watched videos on the site. The move led to concerns that the viewing habits of individual users could be identified through a combination of their IP addresses and login names. The decision was criticized by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which called the court ruling "a set-back to privacy rights". Viacom immediately said that it was not looking to receive personally identifiable information, and on July 14, 2008, Google and Viacom agreed to protect YouTube users' personal data in the lawsuit. Google agreed it will make user information and internet protocol addresses from its YouTube subsidiary anonymous before handing over the data to Viacom. The privacy deal also applied to other litigants including the English Premier League, the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organisation and the Scottish Premier League.

Viacom International

As with the old Viacom, the current company owns Viacom International, which is the formal owner of copyrights associated with Viacom's corporate website and its cable networks. This division now owns the rights to a majority of Elvis Presley films made for Paramount Pictures, such as ''Blue Hawaii'' and ''King Creole''. It also continues to focus on its own in-house productions made for its various networks (MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, etc.) – these programs include ''Dora the Explorer'', ''Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!'', ''LazyTown'', ''SpongeBob SquarePants'', ''Catscratch'', ''Invader ZIM'', ''The Hills'' and ''Behind The Music''.

Corporate governance

The previous board of directors of Viacom were George S. Abrams, David Andelman, Joseph Califano, Jr., William Cohen, Philippe Dauman, Alan Greenberg, Charles Phillips, Shari Redstone, Sumner Redstone, Frederic Salerno, William Schwartz, and Robert D. Walter. Following the Viacom/CBS split, the Viacom board consisted of George S. Abrams, Philippe Dauman, Thomas E. Dooley, Ellen V. Futter, Robert Kraft, Alan Greenberg, Charles Phillips, Sumner Redstone (Chairman), Shari Redstone (non-executive Vice-Chair), Frederic Salerno, and William Schwartz. As of 2010, the Board consists of George Abrams, Philippe Dauman, Thomas E. Dooley, Alan Greenberg, Robert Kraft, Blythe McGarvie, Charles Phillips, Shari E. Redstone, Sumner M. Redstone, Frederic Salerno, and William Schwartz On September 5, 2006, Tom Freston resigned from the company. He was replaced by Philippe P. Dauman.

Assets

Film production and distribution : Viacom International, Paramount Pictures,MTV Films, Nickelodeon Movies
Television networks : Comedy Central, Logo, BET, Spike, TV Land, Nick@Nite, Nickelodeon, TeenNick, Nick Jr., MTV, VH1, MTV2, Nick2, Tr3s, CMT, Palladia
Video gaming : Harmonix, GameTrailers, Neopets
New media : MTV New Media

See also

List of conglomerates
Viacom (1971–2005)

References

External links

Ketupa.net - Viacom
Viacom information by Hoover's
Viacom profile by Yahoo!
Split documentation - SEC filing on Form S-4 from October 5, 2005 describing the split.