A Passion to Win by Sumner Redstone

Author:Sumner Redstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2001-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

NINE

THE PARAMOUNT DEAL

When I acquired Viacom I had a vision of creating the number-one software-driven media company in the world. We had cable networks, television production and TV and radio stations. I needed a movie studio to fill out the picture. Almost from the beginning I had my eye on Paramount Pictures.

It was clear to me, even when MTV Networks was in its infancy, that we would grow that franchise not only domestically but all over the world. I had to be confident, I had to be optimistic; that is my nature. And by 1993, I had been proved correct. My original stake in Viacom, $400 million plus a later purchase of $100 million in stock, was now worth $5.5 billion. All those who said I had overpaid for the company, or that it would fail, had been proved wrong. We were thriving. The marriage of Viacom and Paramount’s parent company, Paramount Communications, would create exactly the company I had originally envisioned. I had the same confidence in Viacom’s ability to grow Paramount that I’d had in my own ability to grow Viacom.

It would have taken several lifetimes to accumulate the assets of Paramount Communications and it would have been impossible to put the company together from scratch. Paramount Communications included the Paramount Pictures studio (motion picture production), the Paramount television production operation ( Frasier, Cheers, Taxi, Wings, MacGyver, Laverne and Shirley, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Entertainment Tonight ) and a library of 890 films which was one of the best in the world, including the Godfather series, Star Trek, Beverly Hills Cop and Indiana Jones. The company also included Paramount Parks, five regional theme parks (you couldn’t build parks like that; the cost of the real estate alone would have been staggering); more than a thousand movie screens, which of course attracted me, including Famous Players, one of the two leading circuits in Canada; Famous Music, a venerated music publisher which controlled the rights to many multiple-platinum Paramount Pictures and Paramount television sound-track albums and had just begun to sign such talent as Paula Cole, Björk and Boyz II Men. Also part of the Paramount Communications empire were Simon & Schuster, the leading American publisher, which included the number-one educational publisher in the world as well as Prentice-Hall, Macmillan, Scribner and Pocket Books; Madison Square Garden, “the world’s most famous arena,” as well as ownership of the New York Rangers and the New York Knicks and cable’s MSG Network; co-ownership of USA Networks; and seven television stations across America.

Paramount Communications was a gourmet media meal. To order it à la carte would have been prohibitive. I was hungry for the challenge, but there was no certainty that the entire feast was even available. Paramount was run by its CEO, Martin Davis, who was clearly having a very good time doing his job. Martin and I went pretty far back.

In 1964, Herb Siegel and a partner had taken a run at Paramount Pictures. In response, the studio set up a three-man committee to fend off the attack.

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