Sumner Redstone’s first big hire after the Paramount acquisition, he enjoyed a fruitful decade-long partnership with Sherry Lansing.
A bombshell new book from two Pulitzer winners reveals some truly shocking storylines within the real-life “Succession” drama that is the Paramount media empire.
“Children will be protected from advertising based on any past online activities or any previously collected data in the subject app or anywhere else on the internet,” lawyers for parents of young children tell a federal judge.
Exclusives
Viacom and CBS shares perked up Wednesday, each rising more than 3% in their final day of trading as separate companies. The media companies’ all-stock merger took effect after the closing bell. Shares in ViacomCBS will begin trading Thursday morning on the Nasdaq.
The executive sent the email to staff after Viacom and CBS completed their merger following the close of the stock market.
Management touts the firm’s big U.S. TV audience share, content library, growing streaming services and international upside, but some analysts say investors want to see proof of the merger benefits over time.
Shari Redstone gets her wish, bringing about the merger of two media giants in a $25 billion deal. The plan is to become a content arms dealer in the streaming wars.
A Delaware judge on Monday ordered CBS Corp. to turn over records regarding its plan to reunite with Viacom to a shareholder who wants to investigate if the deal unfairly benefits Shari Redstone, who controls both companies.
CBS and Viacom expect their re-merger to become official after the U.S. stock markets close on Wednesday, Dec. 4, the companies said this morning.
Viacom Beats Quarterly Revenue Estimates
Viacom this morning reported fourth-quarter profit of 79 cents a share that beat Wall Street forecasts and Paramount Pictures returned to full-year profitability, though revenue slipped 1% to barely undershoot estimates. Revenue came in at $3.4 billion for the quarter, down from $3.5 billion in the year-earlier quarter. The quarterly report is Viacom’s last as a stand-alone company. It expects to close its all-stock merger with CBS in early December.
Viacom and CBS said their merger is getting nearer to completion and that a closing is now expected in early December. The companies said that the merger proposals have been approved by National Amusements, the investment company owned by the Redstone family that controls both Viacom and CBS.
Top media analysts have cut their short-term growth prospects for ViacomCBS following last week’s financial disclosures that came as part of the closing of CBS Corp.’s stock-swap takeover deal for Viacom.
Just days after Netflix landed global streaming rights to Seinfeld, currently on Hulu, the classic NBC sitcom also has found a new cable home. Viacom has acquired the exclusive cable syndication rights to Seinfeld in a deal with Sony Pictures Television.
Television and streaming channels owned by WarnerMedia, CBS and Viacom will no longer run ads for e-cigarettes or e-cigarette products, including for industry powerhouse Juul, the companies said Wednesday.
David Nevins, chief creative officer of CBS and chairman-CEO of Showtime Networks says that leaders of the two companies are looking for opportunities to create a “virtuous ecosystem” for content that can prosper across the various platforms of the two companies.
Once the heir apparent to disgraced CBS chief Leslie Moonves, Joe Ianniello will now steer the legendary media company through its second incarnation with Viacom.
Combining TV programming like NCIS, The Daily Show and Billions under one company isn’t enough in 2019 to compete with other big media companies.
Moody’s Investors Service has placed CBS and Viacom debt ratings up for review, adding that it will likely downgrade the broadcaster’s overall credit rating while boosting that of Viacom’s.
Shares in Viacom and CBS both declined more than 8% Wednesday as investors absorbed the details of the companies’ long-awaited merger during a broader stock market retreat. CBS stock closed at $44.62, 8% lower, and Viacom at $26.72, down 8.5%.
Viacom CEO Bob Bakish will become CEO of the combined company, ViacomCBS. Acting CBS CEO Joe Ianniello will become chairman and CEO of the CBS division. The deal is an all-stock transaction. The companies say the combined company will have $28 billion in revenue.
CBS and Viacom are inching closer to a deal that would join the onetime siblings after a three-year dance. But whether the reunion will solve their problems or simply kick them down the road remains one of the media world’s biggest questions.
As media giants gird for battle with Netflix and Amazon, CBS and Viacom continue to pursue marginally more patient streaming strategies, gaining steady ground without spending their way into trouble. Now, as the companies prepare finally to consummate a merger that has been many years in the making, they stand to become a bulked-up media player with arguably the industry’s most diversified streaming portfolio.
Board members of CBS and Viacom worked most of the weekend in an effort to reach a long-awaited merger agreement for the two halves of the Redstone media empire. Sources close to the situation said the sides have made progress since Friday in hashing out some of the final details in the tie-up between the media conglomerates that are both controlled by the Redstone family’s National Amusements holding company. An agreement in principle could be announced as early as today.
CBS and Viacom reported earnings on Thursday — and refused to discuss what everyone wanted to know: the status of their merger plans. Despite the dearth of details, sources with direct knowledge of the deal said the merger could be announced within days. Holding up the process are negotiations over the exchange ratio, or the number of new shares that will be given to shareholders of a company that is being acquired — in this case, Viacom, they said.
Viacom Earnings Top Wall St. Expectations
With its anticipated re-coupling with CBS casting a shadow, Viacom reported third quarter earnings that beat Wall Street forecasts on Thursday. For the three months ending on June 30, the film and TV conglomerate reported revenue of $3.36 billion and an adjusted diluted earnings-per-share of $1.33. Media analysts had forecast earnings per share of $1.06 and $3.33 billion in revenue.
Investors and media observers are hoping that Viacom and CBS will offer some hint of their progress this week toward a merger when the media companies each report their second quarter earnings on Aug. 8.
CBS and Viacom appear to have settled the question of who will run the combined entity when the Great Reunion finally occurs, perhaps as soon as next Thursday. Bob Bakish, currently CEO of Viacom, is in line to head the merged company, sources familiar with the proposed structure tell Deadline. Joe Ianniello, who has been acting CEO of CBS, will continue to run the CBS assets in a senior role.
Viacom maintained upfront dollar volume across its networks/platforms by “doubling” media agency deals across its digital, social and advanced advertising businesses.
Viacom relied on Madison Avenue’s interest in new forms of video advertising to drive activity in the industry’s annual “upfront” market, but captured a level of advance commitments that was similar to last year’s benchmarks, a signal that the current ad market is proving more robust for broadcast TV than it is for cable.
CBS could announce its $15.4 billion plan to acquire Viacom as soon as Aug. 8 when it reports quarterly earnings. That move would give controlling shareholder Shari Redstone the ability to leverage key content like ‘Star Trek’ across numerous platforms and amp up its competition with companies like Netflix.
CBS and Viacom continue to bob along with merger talks and are now circling Aug. 8 as an internal deadline to agree to a deal, according to people familiar with the matter. While a transaction could be announced sooner — or later — than that, CBS and Viacom happen to share Aug. 8 as the day both companies report second-quarter earnings. That makes it a natural goal post for a merger that’s been speculated about for more than a year, the people said.
Belittled by Viacom and CBS executives, the heiress now sits atop a media empire. The possible merger of Viacom and CBS, once portrayed as the singular and unreasonable obsession of Shari Redstone, looks different in 2019. At this year’s upfronts, Redstone came to the CBS party for the first time in three years. This time, everyone wanted to take a photo with her.
An increasingly likely merger could shake up the streaming world.
A deal that would re-combine CBS and Viacom is “probably inevitable,” according to a report from Moody’s Investor Service analyst Neil Begley. Merging the companies would fit in with industry trends in which media companies aim to get bigger in order to have leverage with distributors and scale to be able to launch streaming services that would have enough content to attract subscribers, the credit rating agency said.
