Viacom is a media conglomerate with various worldwide interests in cable and satellite television networks (MTV Networks and BET), video gaming (part of Sega of America), and movie production and distribution (the Paramount Pictures movie studio and DreamWorks).

Tom Freston is the President and Chief Executive Officer; Sumner Redstone is the Chairman and, through National Amusements, majority shareholder of Viacom. The new Viacom is considered to be the "high-growth" side of the much larger former Viacom, from which this firm and CBS Corporation were split off in 2006.

History

In March 2005, the prior Viacom (now known as CBS Corporation) 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.

The split was approved by Viacom's board June 14, 2005, approved December 31, 2005, and effectively undid the Viacom/CBS merger of 1999. The original Viacom changed its name to CBS Corporation and is headed by Moonves. It now includes Viacom's "slow growth businesses", namely CBS, UPN (Which will merge with The WB in the 2006-07 television season, forming The CW Network), CBS Radio, Simon & Schuster, Paramount Parks, Viacom Outdoor, Showtime, and most television production assets. These, according to some analysts, were suffocating the growth of the MTV Networks cable businesses. (The split was structured such that CBS Corporation is actually the company previously known as Viacom.)

A new company, the present Viacom, was also spun-off and is headed by Freston. It is comprised of MTV Networks, BET Networks, Paramount's movie studio, and Paramount Pictures' 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 could infuse new capital to allow for future acquisitions and expansion. Sumner Redstone still controls 71 percent of the voting stock of both companies and is the chairman of both companies.

In June 2005, Viacom announced that it has purchased Neopets, a virtual pet website. That December, Paramount announced it would acquire DreamWorks. All indications are that the whole of DreamWorks - both film and TV studios, albeit not the DreamWorks archive, which was sold to a group lead by George Soros in March 2006 - will remain owned by Viacom, even though CBS acquired Paramount's own TV studio. On February 1, 2006, Paramount completed its long-awaited acquisition of DreamWorks, welcoming them to the Viacom family. As of April 24, 2006, Viacom has obtained Xfire.