Word: media
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Viacom comprises a panoply of media, ranging from talk radio to roadside billboards and including just about anything and everything that can carry or broadcast an advertisement. That's what has Wall Street applauding the deal. "It will be a one-stop shop," says PaineWebber analyst Chris Dixon. "Ad buyers can come to them for TV time, billboards, radio ads." CBS has also developed a significant Internet presence. That kind of concentration will give Viacom pricing power too. Dixon, like most analysts, forecasts 18% to 20% increases in cash flow to $5 billion in 1999, and combined revenues above...
Several factors determine the strategy and tactics of the eyeball biz. First, the economics of recession-proofing a media business: ad revenue tends to decrease in business-cycle downturns, while movie-theater ticket sales increase. Second, the marketing possibilities of leveraging between brands and media: for example, network promos plugging websites; TV shows syndicated to sister stations. And with broadband Internet access looming, media companies feel compelled to lock up as much brand-name content and distribution as possible so they will have product and expertise ready for the digital age. "In order for these big companies to stay competitive...
Time Warner, parent company of TIME, is currently the biggest media company in the world, with assets including cable, broadcast, a movie studio, book publishing, a magazine division and the fledgling WB network. And the Viacom-CBS deal has again piqued the longstanding yearning of Time Warner vice chairman Ted Turner (who once made a run at CBS) to buy NBC, the only major network not affiliated with a Hollywood studio. That's not likely to happen, since Time Warner chairman Gerald Levin seems satisfied with the WB and the company's collection of cable networks...
...will these two media chieftains get along? Karmazin, who went to CBS when his Infinity Broadcasting was acquired by that company in 1996, has been known to depose long-standing corporate kings, while Redstone has a scalp collection any corporate warrior would be proud to own. Recent additions include those of his top lieutenants, deputy chairmen Philippe Dauman and Thomas Dooley, who got the blade (and a pile of money) as soon as the CBS deal was concluded...
Additionally, there are greater concerns that if too much media power aggregates in just a few companies, it will become harder for the myriad voices necessary in a democracy to find outlets. "I get very nervous when more and more control moves into fewer and fewer hands," warns Senator Mike DeWine, an Ohio Republican and chairman of the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Business Rights and Competition. "This is not a mere commodity we're talking about. It's something more fundamental--information in a democracy...