Sumner Redstone, one of the patriarchs of the media and entertainment world in the United States, died Tuesday. His fortune, estimated between two and three billion dollars, this native of the American Northeast fascinated by Hollywood built it from a small company founded by his father in the 1930s. Today, the group that his daughter, Shari Redstone chairs, ViacomCBS, is a very heavy conglomerate: $ 28 billion in revenue in 2019 for $ 16 billion in market capitalization. It is present in television (the CBS channel and its thematic variations in sports or cinema), cable networks and their popular channels MTV or Comedy Central, the pay-per-view channel Showtime or the Paramount film studios (Top Gun, Tintanic ...) ... What to compete with Disney or Netflix. Via National Amusements, Sumner Redstone and now his daughter have control of it.
Coming from a modest family, Sumner Redstone is the son of a Jewish entrepreneur living in Boston who developed a regional network of drive-in and then of movie theaters from 1936 which would later serve as the starting point for an empire. . But his first professional steps, he will take them in the world of law. He studied at Harvard, worked in 1948 for the US Department of Justice in San Francisco when the antitrust prohibited the control of dark rooms by Hollywood studios, before setting up on his own as a business lawyer.
But in 1954, the opportunities offered by "entertainment" were too great. Sumner Redstone joined his father's business, which he renamed National Amusements. It is from her - his official seat is still located in Massachussets - that the young wolf will extend his web in the cinema, the media and the edition. “Content Is King”, the expression comes from Redstone, which develops the company and at the same time makes initial investments in the big studios which will prove to be very successful.
TV boom
The serious things start in 1971 when he decides to invest in television. The small screen is installed in all American homes. Sumner Redstone takes advantage of the split demanded by the FCC (the competition regulator in the United States) of the activities of CBS to acquire a stake in Viacom, which inherited the production activities of the television group. Always entertainment: after the takeover by Viacom of MTV in 1985, Redstone saw the full potential of music videos which then exploded on small screens. Financial too, in 1987 he launched a hostile takeover bid on Viacom which he succeeded.
Redstone is a fighter. At nearly 70 years old, the mogul was already at the helm of a small empire in television when he took over Paramount Communications in 1993. Another financial battle waged against one of the pundits of cinema, Barry Diller, but also another emerging heavyweight in the media across the Atlantic, John Malone, the founder of Liberty Media.
The appetite of the septuagenarian does not weaken over time. The acquisition of Paramount has been paid dearly, its group having even had to separate from Madison Square Garden, temple of entertainment in New York. But the cinema will remain until the end its favorite sport, with in apotheosis the repurchase in 2006, for a billion and a half dollars, of the exclusive rights of the films signed DreamWorks, the production company of Steven Spielberg. In “house” productions, Redstone can now boast of having some pretty pieces on the shelves: The Godfather , Titanic , but also some blockbusters from animation: Shrek or Madagascar . The adventure will last only three years, the time for Redstone to dismiss Tom Cruise, the star actor of Mission Impossible , considered too capricious.
CBS and Viacom meeting
Highlight of the show in 2000, Sumner Redstone took control of CBS, which had to split up and create Viacom nearly thirty years earlier. Four years later, at the age of 80, the big boss leaves his place at the operational head of Viacom but will remain until 2016 chairman of the boards of directors of CBS and Viacom.
In his private life, Sumner Redstone has often hit the headlines. Married and divorced twice, the father quarreled with his son for good. As for relations with his daughter Shari, they were sometimes strained. Particularly in recent years, as the management of his estate has been complicated by the rivalry between the respective directors of Viacom and CBS, and the tensions between Sumner and Shari Redstone, who managed to re-merge the two entities last year.