Viacom originated on March 16, 1952 — when CBS founded its
broadcast syndication division,
CBS Television Film Sales. It renamed as
CBS Films in October 1958. On December 1, 1967, it again renamed as
CBS Enterprises Inc.. On July 6, 1970, it announced that CBS Enterprises would be spun out from its parent company, and the same month the division was incorporated as
Viacom, and
spun off on January 1, 1971, amid new
FCC rules forbidding
television networks from
owning syndication companies (the rules were later repealed). Viacom expanded its activities throughout the decade with a launch of a production unit, and later acquired the rights to various features from various studios. In addition to CBS television series syndication rights, Viacom also held cable systems with 90,000 cable subscribers, at that time the largest in the United States. In 1976, Viacom launched
Showtime, a pay movie channel, with
Warner-Amex taking a half-share ownership. The company went into original programming production starting in the late 1970s until the early 1980s with middling results.
Expansion through acquisitions Viacom's first broadcast station acquisition came in 1978 when the company purchased WHNB-TV in
New Britain, Connecticut, changing its call letters to
WVIT. Two years later Viacom added the Sonderling Broadcasting chain, giving it radio stations in
New York City,
Washington, D.C.,
Houston, and
San Francisco, and one television station, WAST (now
WNYT) in
Albany, New York. In 1983, Viacom purchased
KSLA in
Shreveport, Louisiana, and
WHEC-TV in
Rochester, New York, in separate transactions. This was followed in 1986 with CBS-owned KMOX-TV in
St. Louis; with the purchase, that station's call letters were changed to
KMOV. Also in 1983, Viacom reacquired its premium channel Showtime, and later merged it with Warner-Amex's
The Movie Channel forming
Showtime/The Movie Channel, Inc. Between the late 1980s and the early 1990s, Viacom syndicated several shows produced by
Carsey-Werner Productions, namely
The Cosby Show,
A Different World and
Roseanne. In 1985, Viacom acquired Showtime/The Movie Channel, Inc. from Warner-Amex, ending the joint venture. Around the same time, Viacom bought
MTV Networks, which owned
MTV,
VH-1, and
Nickelodeon. The deal was completed in 1986. This led to Viacom becoming a mass media company rather than simply a distribution company. In 1987, Viacom sought to expand its horizons by launching the new Viacom Network Enterprises division, which was led by Ronald C. Bernard, in order to develop and exploit properties outside of the core cable business and the company would ride herd on diverse enterprises as Viacom's pay-per-view venture, Viewer's Choice, Satellite Direct, Inc. and SMA TV, and handle strategic planning and new business development for Viacom Networks Group, and would develop merchandising, licensing and home video business around the two Viacom subsidiaries it was currently operating,
Showtime-The Movie Channel, Inc. and
MTV Networks. In 1989, the company had set up its own division Viacom Pictures, to produce its feature films for television, most notably
Showtime.
Sumner Redstone, via his theater chain operator
National Amusements, acquired a controlling interest in Viacom on June 10, 1987. Also in 1993,
WTXX entered into a part-time local marketing agreement with Viacom's NBC station
WVIT. The Paramount and Blockbuster acquisitions gave Viacom access to large television holdings: An archive of programming controlled by
Aaron Spelling's company which included, along with
his own productions, the pre-1973
ABC and
NBC libraries under
Worldvision Enterprises and
Republic Pictures; and an expanded group of television stations which merged Viacom's five existing outlets into
Paramount's seven-station group. Viacom used some of these stations to launch the
UPN network, which started operations in January 1995 as a
joint venture with
Chris-Craft Industries. Shortly afterward, Viacom/Paramount spent the next two years selling off its non-UPN affiliated stations to various owners. In 1997, Viacom exited the broadcast radio business, albeit temporarily, when it sold the majority of its stations to Chancellor Media, a predecessor company of
iHeartMedia. On September 7, 1999, Viacom announced their acquisition of
CBS Corporation in a $35.9 billion deal. In addition to being the largest media merger in history at the time, the purchase effectively reunited Viacom with its former parent, CBS. The merger was completed in May 2000, bringing CBS's cable channels TNN (now
Paramount Network) and
Country Music Television (CMT) under Viacom's MTV Networks wing, as well as CBS's production and distribution units Eyemark Entertainment (formerly
Group W Productions) and
King World under the main wing. The merger also folded Viacom's broadcast group, now consisting entirely of UPN stations, into CBS's
owned-stations division. In 2001, Viacom completed its purchase of BET Holdings, the owners of the
Black Entertainment Television (BET) network. As with CBS Cable, it was immediately integrated into MTV Networks, causing some outcry among BET workers in the Washington, D.C., area (where BET was based before the merger). As a result, BET was separated from MTV Networks, into a division known as
BET Networks. Although a majority economic interest in Viacom was held by independent shareholders, the Redstone family maintained 71% voting control of the company through National Amusements' holdings of Viacom's stock. In 2002, Viacom's MTV Networks International bought independently run Dutch music video channel
TMF, which at the time was broadcasting in
Belgium and the
Netherlands. In June 2004, MTVNI bought
VIVA Media AG, the German equivalent to MTV. The same month, plans were announced to dispose of Viacom's interest in Blockbuster later that year by means of an exchange offer; the spinoff of Blockbuster was completed in October. Also in 2002, Viacom acquired the remaining shares of
Infinity Broadcasting radio chain, which resulted in Viacom's return to operating radio stations after it originally exited the broadcast radio business in 1997. In April 2003, Viacom acquired the remaining ownership shares of
Comedy Central from then-
AOL Time Warner, integrating Comedy Central into MTV Networks.
Viacom Cable From its formation until 1995, Viacom operated several
cable television systems generally located in the
Dayton,
San Francisco,
Nashville and
Seattle metropolitan areas. Several of these were originally independent systems that CBS acquired in the 1960s. The division was known as Viacom Cablevision until the early 1990s, when it was renamed to
Viacom Cable. By 1995, Viacom Cable had about 1.1 million subscribers. Viacom sold the division to
TCI in 1995. Viacom's cable assets are now part of
Comcast.
Corporate spin-off In March 2005, Viacom announced that it would split into two companies – one would contain Viacom's "slow-growth" assets; the other would consist of the company's "high-growth" divisions – under National Amusements' control because of a stagnating stock price. The internal rivalry between CBS chairman
Les Moonves and MTV Networks
chief executive officer Tom Freston, and
the controversy of the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show were also seen as factors. After the departure of
Mel Karmazin in 2004, Redstone, who served as
chairman and CEO, decided to split the offices of
president and
chief operating officer between Moonves and Freston. Redstone was set to retire in the near future, and a split would be a creative solution to the matter of replacing him. The existing Viacom would become
the second CBS Corporation as it was headed by Moonves and kept CBS,
Simon & Schuster, and Paramount Network Television (now known as
CBS Studios), among other assets; while MTV Networks, BET Networks, and Paramount Pictures would spin-off to a sister company headed by Freston under the
Viacom name. The split was approved by Viacom's board on June 14, 2005, and took effect on December 31. On August 13, 2019, CBS and Viacom officially announced their
re-merger deal; the combined company would be called ViacomCBS, with
Bob Bakish as president and CEO and
Shari Redstone as the chairwoman of the new company. The deal was closed on December 4. Despite ViacomCBS renaming itself to
Paramount Global on February 16, 2022, several Paramount retired the Viacom name by assets for 52 years. == Former Viacom-owned stations ==