Viacom CEO Tom Freston was ousted by the company's board yesterday, and MarketWatch says Chairman Sumner Redstone orchestrated his departure because of several missed new media opportunities--MySpace
among them. To be sure, Viacom's online offerings aren't anything to write home about; they mostly comprise extensions of the company's vastly more popular TV brands, like MTV, Comedy Central and
Nickelodeon. During Freston's nine months in charge of Viacom, which split from CBS Corp. at the beginning of the year, the company's stock price has fallen 20 percent. CBS, meanwhile, has seen its
shares move a similar amount in the opposite direction since the split. Redstone was damning in his assessment of Freston's inability to move the company in the right direction. Philippe Dauman,
another Viacom board member, who Redstone said would "never, ever let another competitor beat us to the trophy," will replace Freston. The "trophy" in this case could refer to MySpace, which was
scooped up by News Corp. at the beginning of last summer. Freston was then president of MTV Networks, the Viacom company that was largely expected to spearhead its Internet charge. Either way, the
loss did nothing to bolster Freston's eventual position as Viacom CEO. On the conference call, Dauman said the company needs to be "more plugged in" to Web startups in general, although he said no
major acquisitions would be forthcoming.
Read the whole story at MarketWatch »
