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Frank StantonFrank Stanton
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Session:         Page of 755

In the ensuing period, others bought into--people bought into Viacom. It changed its name from Viacom [pronounced with a long “e” sound] to Viacom [pronounced with a long “i” sound], because the new purchaser wanted to call it Viacom. The new controller. That was Sumner Redstone, the man who made the deal to acquire--now I can't think of what he was going to get. Was it--

Q:

Paramount?

Stanton:

No, he was going to buy Paramount.

Q:

Paramount, yes. He was there for twenty years.

Stanton:

He apparently preferred the Viacom [long “i”] pronunciation, as against the Viacom [long “e”]. Small point.

Q:

You had me nervous. I thought I was pronouncing it the wrong way this morning. [Both laugh]

Stanton:

He's an interesting character. He comes out of Boston--is a very wealthy man. Very active in the movie industry, basically in the exhibition end. Owns theaters and now does control Viacom, but is trying to acquire Paramount. That would be of the order of a seven-and-a-half or eight-billion-dollar deal, which is not inconsequential as deals go. Of course, it was overshadowed by this big cable deal.

At any rate, that's the way Viacom started. Now that wasn't the first entry we made into





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