Viacom

NEW YORK -- One of Wall Street's longest takeover battles ended yesterday in a crescendo of anger, disbelief and disappointment. And that was on the winning side.Officially, Viacom Inc. sounded a triumphant note after being declared the official winner of the $10 billion Paramount Communications Inc. sweepstakes. Paramount shareholders voted overwhelmingly to sell their shares to Viacom, which had offered a combination of cash and stocks worth $9.8 billion.The loser was QVC Inc., which had tried over the past five months to horn in on the arranged marriage between Viacom and Paramount.

DirecTV subscribers have lost"SpongeBob SquarePants," "The Daily Show" and "Mob Wives. " Unable to reach a deal with Viacom, parent of several popular cable channels, including MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and VH1, DirecTV is no longer carrying the media giant's networks. DirecTV has almost 20 million subscribers around the nation. Both sides blamed each other for the channels coming off of the satellite broadcaster on Tuesday evening. Viacom said DirecTV dropped the channels without warning.

DirecTV subscribers have lost"SpongeBob SquarePants," "The Daily Show" and "Mob Wives. " Unable to reach a deal with Viacom, parent of several popular cable channels, including MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and VH1, DirecTV is no longer carrying the media giant's networks. DirecTV has almost 20 million subscribers around the nation. Both sides blamed each other for the channels coming off of the satellite broadcaster on Tuesday evening. Viacom said DirecTV dropped the channels without warning.

Media companies routinely play chicken in negotiations over such issues as retransmission fees and bundling, terms that mean next to nothing to their customers until one of the companies they subscribe to lets things get out of hand. Usually, that never happens. But it did at midnight Tuesday with DirecTV and Viacom, which resulted in the satellite TV provider's 20 million customers being without such Viacom-owned channels as Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, BET and VH1. In all, 17 channels were lost at midnight with shows that feature such performers as Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, SpongeBob SquarePants and Snooki.

NEW YORK -- As the midnight deadline neared last night in the long-running takeover battle for Paramount Communications, even executives close to QVC Network conceded that Viacom had apparently won.But even if Viacom has succeeded in its five-month struggle with QVC, there were indications yesterday that the merged Viacom-Paramount might face even greater financial pressures than have been expected.The problems involve Viacom's plan to strengthen its hand by also acquiring Blockbuster Entertainment, the leader in video rentals.

To raise its investment in Viacom Inc.'s battle for Paramount Communications Inc., Blockbuster Entertainment Co. is said to be seeking a Viacom asset as well as better terms, according to several executives close to Blockbuster.Although it was unclear yesterday whether a revised deal between Viacom and its equity investor was imminent, many analysts said they expected Viacom's chairman, Sumner M. Redstone, to make another bid before Jan. 7.That is the deadline the Paramount board has set for Viacom to top the cash-and-stock offer by QVC Network Inc. that is worth about $10 billion.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Is the merger between Blockbuster Entertainment and Viacom Inc. on again?Wall Street analysts have been talking about that possibility for weeks. Blockbuster Chairman Wayne Huizenga fueled speculation this week in a brief aside to a Miami Herald reporter."It looks like the Viacom deal is going to go through," Mr. Huizenga said.But yesterday, the company lips were sealed."The company has no comment at this time on the status of the transaction," said Senior Vice President and General Counsel Thomas Hawkins, who expressed disbelief over Mr. Huizenga's remark.

WASHINGTON -- The House Ways and Means Committee approved a bill last night that would repeal a tax break for minority-owned media companies, a move that could kill Viacom Inc.'s plan to sell its cable television systems for $2.3 billion while avoiding hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes.The bill, which was approved on a voice vote and was supported by House Republican leaders, is part of a broader Republican effort to end government programs that offer preferences to women and members of minorities.

NEW YORK -- Viacom Inc. is looking for a buyer for its majority stake in Spelling Entertainment Group Inc., producer of television hits such as "Beverly Hills 90210" and "Melrose Place."Viacom, which is seeking to shed assets and reduce debt, values Los Angeles-based Spelling at as much as $2 billion, said an investment banker familiar with Viacom's pricing strategy. Based on today's stock price, Spelling's market value is about $1.06 billion.The investment banker said candidates to buy Spelling include Westinghouse Electric Corp.

NEW YORK -- Tele-Communications Inc. is negotiating to purchase Viacom Inc.'s cable television systems for about $2.2 billion, according to investment bankers on both sides of the transaction.The purchase would be one of the largest cable television system transactions in years, and the first big sale in the industry since the Federal Communications Commission in February ordered cable operators to lower their rates.A TCI-Viacom transaction would also patch up the bitter rivalry between two industry heavyweights: Viacom Chairman Sumner M. Redstone and TCI Chief Executive John C. Malone.

SAN FRANCISCO - A federal judge has ordered Google to turn over to Viacom its records of which users watched which videos on YouTube, the Web's largest video site by far. The order raised concerns among YouTube users and privacy advocates that the video viewing habits of tens of millions of people could be exposed. But Google Inc. and Viacom Inc. said they were hoping to come up with a way to protect the anonymity of the site's visitors. Viacom also said that the information would be safeguarded by a protective order restricting access to the data to outside lawyers, who will use it solely to press Viacom's $1 billion copyright lawsuit against Google.

HOLLYWOOD -- American presidents can serve only two terms. In baseball, even a great slugger is lucky to get a seven-year contract. But at Viacom, Sumner Redstone is apparently king for life. In recent days, the media have been roiling with a new round of eye-rolling tales about the cantankerous Viacom chairman's fights and feuds, from an ugly dispute with his daughter Shari over her succession, to reports that Dream- Works founders David Geffen and Steven Spielberg are still seething over perceived snubs since being acquired by Paramount, a Viacom subsidiary, in late 2005.

What would YouTube be without Jon Stewart, South Park, SpongeBob SquarePants, The Colbert Report and dozens of other commercial video clips? Oh, just the hottest collection of America's home videos, self-made movies, no-name docudramas, videodiaries, bloopers, candidate cameos and gotcha outtakes. This video bulletin board is as eccentric, wacky, evocative, idiosyncratic and freewheeling as its users. And yet entertainment giant Viacom has charged that snippets of its stars, comics and cartoon characters that appear on YouTube are copyright infringement.

The notion of the Internet as a free ride, a place in cyberspace where almost anything is available for nothing, might at last be put to a real test. After weeks of fruitless negotiations, the media conglomerate Viacom - owner of MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and Paramount Pictures - sued Google and its wildly popular video-sharing site YouTube yesterday for what it claims is copyright infringement. Viacom, which is seeking $1 billion in damages, said in its suit that YouTube has benefited from what it called "massive intentional" violations of copyrights of Viacom-owned videos.

NEW YORK -- YouTube, the video-sharing site owned by Google Inc., agreed yesterday to remove more than 100,000 clips produced by Viacom Inc. that were posted without permission. Viacom asked to have the videos removed because YouTube was unwilling to reach a "fair market agreement" to compensate for using the content, Viacom said. Google said it would comply with the request. The clash highlights the challenge YouTube faces from media companies that say the site is gaining popularity from content at their expense.

They are sons of strong women. Both have sparred publicly with their heirs, both are plotting to conquer China, and both seem to view immortality as their best succession plan. But what really unites Viacom Inc. Chairman Sumner M. Redstone and News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch is that, to a degree almost unknown today among heads of U.S. public companies, they can do as they please. Redstone and Murdoch are part of a line of autocratic media titans stretching to CNN founder Ted Turner, William S. Paley of CBS, Henry Luce of Time Inc., newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst and such lions of early Hollywood as Louis B. Mayer and Adolph Zuken.

Confounding Wall Street yet again with unexpected bad news, Viacom Inc. said yesterday that earnings for its Blockbuster Entertainment unit would be far below analyst expectations for the second quarter and for the full year.The company said that cash flow would plummet as much as 72 percent to $40 million to $50 million from the $143 million posted for the second quarter of last year. Viacom also said it was taking a writedown of $300 million for overstocked items and to close some stores.

Adding to his growing war chest, Viacom's chairman, Sumner M. Redstone, announced yesterday that the NYNEX Corp. had agreed to invest $1.2 billion in his entertainment company to give him additional ammunition to increase his $7.4 billion bid for Paramount Communications Inc. -- and possibly top a competing offer from QVC Network Inc.Although Paramount has technically agreed to merge with Viacom, the deal is in jeopardy as long as QVC, a home-shopping service...

HOLLYWOOD -- Viacom Inc. Chairman Sumner Redstone was crowing Wednesday, the day after his harsh public dismissal of superstar Tom Cruise sent shivers through Hollywood and destroyed the feel-good spirit that had imbued his company's Paramount Pictures studio this summer. For Redstone, a bump in Viacom's stock price - however slight - outweighed any hangover in Hollywood his blunt remarks about one of Paramount's most bankable stars may have caused. Redstone said he was justly reassuring Wall Street that Paramount would not squander profits by overpaying stars in an effort to help lift Viacom's recently sagging stock price.

On Jan. 3, Sumner M. Redstone will get his wish when Viacom, the sprawling media company he built, is split into two separate entities. Now what? Even before the separation, the two companies - Viacom, which includes Paramount and cable networks such as MTV and Nickelodeon, and will be led by Thomas E. Freston; and CBS, encompassing the CBS network, television and radio stations, Simon & Schuster and an outdoor advertising business, to be run by Leslie...