What is "viacom"

Viacom, Inc. (short for Video & Audio Communications) is an American global mass media company with interests primarily in cinema and cable television. It is currently the world's sixth largest broadcasting and cable company in terms of revenue (behind Comcast, The Walt Disney Company, Time Warner, Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc., and CBS Corporation, respectively). Voting control of Viacom is held by National Amusements, Inc., a privately owned theater company controlled by billionaire Sumner Redstone. Redstone also holds, via National Amusements, a controlling stake in CBS Corporation.

The current Viacom was created on December 31, 2005, as a spin-off from CBS Corporation, which changed its name from Viacom to CBS at the same time. CBS, not Viacom, retains control of the over-the-air broadcasting, TV production, subscription pay television ( Showtime) and publishing assets ( Simon & Schuster) previously owned by the pre-split company. Predecessor firms of Viacom include Gulf+Western, which later became Paramount Communications Inc., and Westinghouse Electric Corporation.

Comprising BET Networks, Viacom Media Networks, and Paramount Pictures, Viacom operates approximately 170 networks reaching approximately 700 million subscribers in 160 countries.

Viacom Inc. (short for Visual & Audio Communications) was an American media conglomerate. Effective December 31, 2005, this corporate entity changed its name to CBS Corporation. The present firm also known as Viacom was also established at that date and is a new spin-off company created during the CBS-Viacom split.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Viacom was a distributor of CBS television series for syndication, including such shows as I Love Lucy, The Andy Griffith Show, The Twilight Zone and All in the Family. They also syndicated shows for others, the biggest examples being The Cosby Show and Roseanne (which were produced by Carsey-Werner Productions, who eventually began distributing their own programming).