Media

Viacom’s Redstone Just Hedging Google/YouTube Bets?

From Internet Oursider One massive old media conglomerate, Viacom, is so outraged about Google’s "willful copyright infringement" that it is suing Google for $1 billion.  Another massive old media conglomerate, CBS, finds Google so easy and fair to deal with…

By Douglas A. McIntyre
Published March 16, 2007, 12:35pm ET · 1 min read

From Internet Oursider

One massive old media conglomerate, Viacom, is so outraged about Google’s "willful copyright infringement" that it is suing Google for $1 billion.  Another massive old media conglomerate, CBS, finds Google so easy and fair to deal with that it has struck a major clip-distribution deal.  Is this strange?  Only because both conglomerates are run by the same man.

Possible interpretations:

  1. Sumner Redstone really has gotten absent-minded in his later years.
  2. Les Moonves actually does run CBS.
  3. Phillippe Dauman actually does run Viacom.
  4. Sumner Redstone still is a clever fellow…one who wants to continue to gather as much information as possible while he decides what to do about YouTube.

Interpretation 1 is possible, but unlikely.  Interpretations 2 and 3 are inconceivable.  So my money’s on No. 4.

Posted by Henry Blodget on March 16

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Douglas A. McIntyre

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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