CBS and Viacom to Merge Into New Media Giant
In an era where Disney owns Fox and AT&T owns Warner Bros., and Comcast owns NBC and Universal, here is one more mega media merger to add to the pile: CBS and Viacom.
The deal that will combine two different TV and film giants is done, per CNBC. They run down the biggest properties that will now be housed under one metaphorical corporate roof:
A merger will add movie studio Paramount Pictures, cable networks such as Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon and BET, and other assets including the streaming service Pluto TV and South Park Studios to CBS, which owns the eponymous broadcast network and other cable and media assets.
The key difference between the deal to combine Viacom and CBS into ViacomCBS (that’s really the new company’s name) and all of the others mentioned earlier is that once upon a time, way back before the year 2006, Viacom and CBS were part of the same corporate entity. Viacom (which stands for Video and Audio Communications, just in case you play bar trivia regularly) began life as the syndicator of CBS television programming. It was spun off into its own company in the 1970s, then grew large enough to buy CBS’ parent company in 1997. Then about a decade later the two were split, into CBS and Viacom. This news basically undoes that decision.
But of course a lot has changed in the media landscape since then. Where Viacom might have been one of the biggest media companies once upon a time, they are just another of a slew of corporate media giants. And the full impact on these gigantic companies on our lives will probably not be fully understood for many years.
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