Viacom Cleaved In Twain, Moonves Slowed?
Viacom's board has approved the long-discussed split of the behemoth conglomerate into two somewhat smaller behemoths. Former co-presidents Les Moonves and Tom Freston will each run their own fiefdom, with Moonves taking over CBS Corp. (CBS network, Paramount Television, radio holdings, etc), and Freston topping Viacom, Inc. (Paramount Pictures, MTV Networks, various cable channels, pimped rides), but we're not going to get into the boring details any more deeply than we already have. While Freston has suddenly found himself a lot less likely to be snuffed out with a Cribs-branded pillow by Moonves once his co-presidency became "inconvenient" to the generously-betoothed future galactic dictator's plans for world domination, it seems that Moonves suddenly finds his potential resources drastically reduced. Cutbacks in his army of 50-foot robots may be announced (barring a big boost from Wall Street), temporarily delaying his plans to deploy the army to kick off an invasion by kidnapping rival Jeff Zucker and submitting him to the public humiliation of a automaton-applied rusty trombone.