The Redstone family media empire has been reunited after more than a decade apart.
CBS ($CBS) and Viacom ($VIA) announced they reached an agreement to merge, with Viacom shareholders receiving nearly 0.6 CBS shares for each Viacom share they own. That values Viacom at slightly less than $12 billion.
“Today marks an important day for CBS and Viacom, as we unite our complementary assets and capabilities and become one of only a few companies with the breadth and depth of content and reach to shape the future of our industry," said Bob Bakish, president and CEO of Viacom, who will hold both titles in the combined company.
The deal represents a coming together of two disparate arms of the vast media holdings owned and controlled by Sumner Redstone and his daughter, Shari — who will be the vice chair of the CBS and Viacom board of directors — under the umbrella of the privately held National Amusements. And it's another indication that, with streaming increasingly becoming the go-to choice for consumers, media conglomerates need to seriously consider combining in order to compete with behemoths like Netflix ($NFLX), AT&T ($T), and Disney ($DIS).
“I am really excited to see these two great companies come together so that they can realize the incredible power of their combined assets," said Shari Redstone. "My father once said ‘content is king,’ and never has that been more true than today.
It is possible that a combined CBS-Viacom will now seek to buy smaller media players to make itself even bigger. Recode reported that some of the names that could become acquisition targets include Discovery-Scripps and Starz-Lionsgate. It is unlikely that CBS-Viacom could itself become an acquisition target, given how potential acquirers almost all have their hands full with their own big purchases. And for tech giants like Apple ($AAPL) and Amazon ($AMZN) looking to gain more of a foothold in content and distribution, the regulatory environment may prove too hard to navigate.
A merger of CBS and Viacom brings brands like MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount movie studio, and the revered CBS broadcast network under one roof for the first time since Redstone split it up in 2006. Bringing the two companies back together has long been a goal of Shari Redstone, who controls the company with Sumner, the aging family patriarch who has faced numerous health issues. A merger was adamantly opposed by Leslie Moonves, the former powerful chair of CBS who was brought down in a sexual harassment scandal last year. With Moonves and his allies on the CBS board out, Redstone moved aggressively to reignite merger discussions, according to reports.
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A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
