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Viacom. Swat Analysis

Viacom Inc. SWOT Analysis
Nowadays media companies continue growing and expanding, thus the challenges of staying competitive on the global scale become increasingly difficult. The same destiny takes over Viacom Incorporation, which strategy is developing on the international arena and retain it's positioning in within the United States.
Viacom, named VIA in the New York Stock Exchange is second largest media conglomerates in USA after Time Warner Inc. and one of the largest media incorporations in the world. The company's major holdings include: cable television, movie production, publishing and retailing. Starting with Cable television, Viacom is a major player in this field, owning MTV, Comedy Central and VH1 among other cable networks. These are number 1 music and comedy channels in the United States. Movie production and distribution: Viacom operates Paramount Pictures and the Blockbuster Video chain of video rental and distribution stores.
Viacom is controlled by National Amusements, a movie theater company (interest). "Chairman Sumner Redstone and his family maintain 71% voting control of the company through National Amusements' holdings of Viacom class A stock. National Amusements was founded by Sumner Redstone's father, Michael Redstone"(Media Owners 2005). Originally, Viacom was the syndication division of CBS, so called CBS Films. But in 1971 the division was renamed "Viacom" which stands for "VIdeo and Audio COMmunications." Viacom didn't become an independent company until
1973. Only in 12 years period, in 1985 Viacom's strategy became conglomerate, when it bought Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment, the owner of MTV and Nickelodeon. After that it renamed the company "MTV Networks". At the same time, the new strong incorporation acquired
Showtime Networks, Inc. (which included Showtime and The Movie Channel). Since 1986 Viacom's life was controlled by Sumner Redstone's National Amusements, a movie theater company. The growing media industry...