CBS Radio ATL

[secondchoice]

I saw this thread

http://boards.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?topic=177327.0

I thought National Amusements was a Viacom holding company. IIRC Redstone sill controls both CBS and Viacom but I thought the two companies were different “on paper”. I use to have a file on the Viacom/CBS and the different holding companies involved but it is on an old computer I do not use anymore. Does anybody know why the asset shuffling is taking place?

 

[DToTheJ]

I believe the cablers like Showtime fall under the Viacom column.

Infinity was "absorbed" by CBS.

 

[jabba17]

National Amusements is the controlling owner of both CBS and Viacom. Radio is under CBS, as is Showtime.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CBS_Corporation#Assets

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viacom#Assets

In general, Viacom owns the movie studios, the basic cable channels, and online gaming; CBS owns everything else (including, oddly, the premium cable channels)

CBS owns the broadcast networks and stations, radio networks and stations, Showtime, the 'new' CBS Records (not to be confused with Columbia/Sony), the TV production studios, billboards, Simon & Schuster, and the rights to the Westinghouse brand (which they have been licensing left and right lately).

 

[DToTheJ]

... Viacom owns... the basic cable channels... CBS owns everything else (including, oddly, the premium cable channels)... CBS owns... Showtime...

I guess I have to look closely next time I come across a print ad for "Dexter". I could have sworn that Showtime was still designated as "a Viacom company" in some instances.

What Viacom really needs to do is bring this back:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10LDTLjEPDM

 

[jabba17]

... Viacom owns... the basic cable channels... CBS owns everything else (including, oddly, the premium cable channels)... CBS owns... Showtime...

I guess I have to look closely next time I come across a print ad for "Dexter". I could have sworn that Showtime was still designated as "a Viacom company" in some instances.

What Viacom really needs to do is bring this back:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10LDTLjEPDM

Little quick and dirty history:
1) Westinghouse buys CBS.
2) Later, Westinghouse changes its name to CBS after dumping most of their non-media assets.
3) Later, CBS gets bought by Viacom (part of National Amusements)
4) Later, NA spins a "new" CBS out of Viacom (both part of NA).

So, there was a point in time when Showtime (as well as the rest of the CBS properties) was owned by Viacom. Interestingly, Viacom was originally a CBS spinoff back in the 1970s when the networks had to dump their TV production studios.

CBS/Viacom/NA seems to like to play fast and loose with the names. Witness what happened to radio and billboards--from Infinity to CBS back to Infinity to Viacom and back to CBS.

But the real surprise moneymaker for CBS seems to be their robust licensing of the Westinghouse name, for a lot of their "old" product lines--lightbulbs, appliances, TVs, etc. With one exception, none of these companies that currently use the W name are old W companies or spinoffs--for example, the lightbulb company is Angelo Bros., not Philips who bought the old W lightbulb business. The exception is the major appliance company--White-Westinghouse (now part of Frigidaire/Electrolux) is the old W white goods business, but that predates the CBS merger by a couple decades.

 

[RoddyFreeman]

I have an ad for Electrolux that appeared in the South African edition of Reader's Digest around 1980. The caption is, "Nothing sucks like Electrolux." I guess certain things have different meanings in other countries.

 

[radiolives]

What was the reason CBS and Viacom split up? Also doesn't Viacom and CBS still share things, as Spike TV advertised for the new HI 5-0 on CBS I saw.

 

[jabba17]

What was the reason CBS and Viacom split up? Also doesn't Viacom and CBS still share things, as Spike TV advertised for the new HI 5-0 on CBS I saw.

From what I understand, it was about putting the fast-growth businesses under Viacom and the slow-growing cash cows under CBS. National Amusements still controls both of them, so it's more like two tracking stocks.