Viacom

They are an eclectic bunch, these black executives who want to muscle their way into the world of television news: a flamboyant trial lawyer. A heavyweight champion. A home run hitter. A former child singing sensation. They are the chief backers of a 4-year-old channel called the Major Broadcasting Cable Network, available in Baltimore City and Prince George's County, that is geared toward black viewers. And now the group - Willie E. Gary, Evander Holyfield, Cecil Fielder and Marlon Jackson - is launching a new 24-hour cable news station that is to focus on the interests of African-Americans.

The Maryland Transit Administration could hardly have picked a better time to unveil its new bus shelters than yesterday afternoon. It wasn't raining or snowing, but a frigid wind whipped off the Inner Harbor as state transit officials huddled under a new glass-and-aluminum shelter at Pratt and Light streets. "These are the kinds of things that make people see transit not as a system of last resort, but as a system they would actively use for work and leisure and other pursuits," said Eugene Peterson, co-chairman of the regional Transit Riders League.

Showtime cable channels tonight will launch the first nationally distributed, weekly block of gay-targeted programming with Night Out on Sho Too, four hours of films, short features and its highly successful Queer as Folk drama every Wednesday starting at 9. In and of itself, tonight's debut of Night Out is no big deal. For one thing, Sho Too (Showtime 2) is one of the multiplex digital channels, which means fewer than one out of five American homes probably has access. Nor is the programming strikingly unusual.

Big is big when it comes to television, and it's only likely to get bigger. A key federal appellate court late last month lifted bans on corporations owning cable and local broadcast properties in the same markets. The same panel of judges strongly questioned the legitimacy of U.S. laws that prevent companies from owning stations that reach more than 35 percent of U.S. television viewers. And the country's top regulator of the television business -- the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission -- has made it clear he's eager to sweep away what he sees as other archaic rules hampering innovation.

Baltimore's largest radio player is shuffling the formats and voices at four stations in an effort to nail down a greater proportion of the listening audience. All the involved stations are controlled by the Infinity radio division of Viacom, a major media conglomerate. As of 3 p.m. yesterday, WQSR, the home to "oldies" standards and Ravens football games, moved down the dial to 102.7 FM. Meanwhile, WXYV, that frequency's former call letters, has been assigned to 105.7 FM, the former home of the oldies station.

The head of Black Entertainment Television, buffeted by criticism, took to his network's airwaves late Monday in a remarkable hour-long program to say he had fired popular talk show host Tavis Smiley because he sold an interview to ABC News. "There was not enough mutual business respect," said BET founder and CEO Robert L. Johnson, in response to one of many skeptical questioners. "There's no reason why we should force a relationship." Johnson's appearance was intended to counter the impression that the move was prompted by BET's new corporate parent, Viacom.

NEW YORK - Viacom Inc. said yesterday that it will buy BET Holdings Inc. for $2.9 billion in stock and assumed debt, adding the top cable channel aimed at black people to its stable of TV networks, including CBS, and big-city radio stations. Viacom, the world's No. 3 media company, said it will issue about 40 million Class B common shares worth $2.34 billion, based on yesterday's close of $58.50. The final purchase price will be based on the share price 20 days before the tax-free transaction is completed.

Comcast Corp., the dominant cable television provider in the Baltimore-Washington area, extended its reach yesterday by agreeing to buy a majority interest in cable channel Home Team Sports from programming giant Viacom Inc. The deal comes on the heels of a Comcast sports venture's purchase in June of three minor-league baseball teams in Maryland. Publicly held Comcast, the nation's third-largest cable company, with 8.2 million customers, declined to disclose terms of the HTS deal, but an executive who asked not to be identified said its value was about $150 million.

With the rhetoric flying from all directions last week in the wake of Viacom buying CBS for $38 billion, it was not easy for viewers to understand what the transaction would mean to their lives.Analysts called it a threat to our democratic way of life and the "end of network television as we knew it," without saying who exactly "we" were and what it was we "knew."The Viacom-CBS deal is a major development, but not a watershed moment in broadcasting history. Disney-ABC and Time-Warner were watersheds because they took us into the current super-conglomerate era of network TV. Viacom-CBS is the continuation of that trend, which experts are predicting will culminate in a Sony-NBC deal.

IT WAS, LITERALLY, a Blockbuster deal. Viacom Inc.'s proposed acquisition of CBS Corp. for $34.9 billion will create a company controlling key names in nearly every entertainment field: CBS, Showtime, MTV, the Nashville Network, Nickelodeon, Paramount, Simon & Schuster, VH1 -- and Blockbuster. Does it make sense as a deal? What does it mean for the industries?Bruce LeichtmanDirector, media and entertainment strategies, the Yankee GroupThe key word would be "synergy." These two companies really complement each other very well.