Viacom then sold the team to ITT Corporation and Cablevision, and a couple of years later, ITT sold their ownership stake to Cablevision, who owned the team until 2010, when they spun off the MSG properties as their own company.

In television, the vast majority of broadcast and basic cable networks, over a hundred in all, are controlled by nine corporations: News Corporation ( the Fox family of channels ), The Walt Disney Company ( which includes the ABC, ESPN and Disney brands ), CBS Corporation, Viacom, Comcast ( which includes the NBC brands ), Time Warner, Discovery Communications, E. W. Scripps Company, Cablevision, or some combination thereof ( examples including the aforementioned The CW as well as A & E Networks, which is a consortium of Comcast and Disney ).

Meanwhile, the Madison Square Garden properties ( including the Knicks and Rangers ) were sold to Cablevision not long after the Viacom takeover.

In 1994, Paramount Communications ( formerly Gulf + Western ), the owner of Madison Square Garden, was acquired by Viacom, who in turn sold the MSG properties to Cablevision and ITT Corporation, which had 50 % ownership each.

Two years earlier Cablevision, who at the time owned the Nets ' broadcast home, SportsChannel New York ( later known as Fox Sports Net New York, and now known as MSG Plus ), became the sole owner to the television rights of all seven MLB, NBA and NHL teams in the New York market when they acquired the competing MSG Network ( previously owned by Gulf + Western, Paramount Communications, and Viacom ), which had the Yankees broadcast rights since 1989.

In 1994, Paramount Communications was acquired by Viacom ( itself a cable giant, having once owned various cable systems in the US and also owns MTV Networks ), who in turn sold the MSG properties to Cablevision and ITT Corporation, which had 50 % ownership each.

In 1998, the network dropped its " The Nashville Network " moniker and shortened its official name to TNN, and ownership shifted to Viacom in the late 1990s after their acquisition of CBS Corporation, Westinghouse's successor.

When Viacom took over TNN in 2000, CBS Cable operations were shut down as TNN's Charlotte ( located at the Lowe's Motor Speedway Industrial Park ) and Nashville ( located near the present Opry Mills mall ) offices were closed and the signals transferred to MTV Networks for the creation of a channel which would eventually be called Spike TV.

Around that time, Paramount was sold to Viacom, making Voyager the first Star Trek TV series to premiere after the sale concluded.

Showtime, originally a service of Viacom, went on the air on July 1, 1976, first shown on a local cable system in Dublin, California.

Months after the Viacom takeover, the New York Rangers won their first Stanley Cup since 1940 over the Vancouver Canucks 4 games to 3, breaking the Curse of 1940 in the process.

The first attempt began in 2001 when MTV Canada was launched by Craig Media and Viacom.

Viacom accused TCI of using the issue of its affiliation contract, which expired in January 1993, to pressure Viacom into settling its lawsuit against them, in which Viacom stated that TCI threatened to hurt both Showtime and The Movie Channel unless Viacom agreed to acquire a stake in Encore, a channel Viacom claimed to be a concept first made by them four years earlier during failed negotiations that would have had TCI purchase a 50 % stake in Showtime Networks.

Viacom had cancelled the Superboy television series produced by Alexander Salkind ( Salkind produced the first three Superman films starring Christopher Reeve, as well as the Supergirl movie ).

New World merged with Fox Television Stations Group in 1996, and KTVI was the first major network O & O in St. Louis since KMOX-TV was sold by CBS to Viacom, and became KMOV in 1986.

The name Paramount Network Television ( PNT ) was also used for the first time ever ( Viacom Productions would also become a division of PNT ).

In 2006, Best Week Ever became the first Viacom property to offer complete, free episodes for download.

Simon & Schuster's first move under Viacom was the acquisition of Macmillan USA.

In its latter days, King World was considered the syndication branch of the CBS network-a role Viacom actually first served upon its creation.

Channel 43 ended its long run as an independent on January 14, 1995, when it became the market's affiliate for both the UPN and WB networks, with UPN-co-owned by Paramount ( through its parent Viacom ) which as mentioned above produced the Star Trek series-as the primary affiliation ( UPN's first program was Star Trek: Voyager ).

On October 29, 2001, Viacom traded WDCA to the News Corporation's Fox Television Stations unit ( along with KTXH in Houston ) in return for KBHK-TV in San Francisco, resulting in the first television duopoly in the Washington D. C. market.

In 1981, he began his first cable television program at Viacom.

However, when Viacom acquired the film for TV re-syndication and first publication on videotape around 1980, Viacom removed all cast and credit material from both the opening and the closing of the film, and re-publications made thereafter were taken from the Viacom-revised master ( even the so-called " uncut " version released on DVD in 1998 by Simitar ).

Viacom International Media Networks Europe launched its first channel MTV Europe on 1 August 1987 from Amsterdam, with its main headquarters based in London.

The Time Warner merger was almost derailed when Paramount Communications ( Formerly Gulf + Western, later sold to Viacom ), launched a $ 12. 2 billion dollar hostile takeover bid for Time Inc., forcing Time to acquire Warner for $ 14. 9 billion dollar cash / stock offer.

: In 1999, Viacom made CBS an offer of $ 37 billion to buy them out.

Rumours had been floating around the Internet prior to the offer about Take-Two possibly being bought over by a bigger company, albeit with Viacom as the potential bidder.

This " strategy " of the gradual dismantling Paramount's assets and library has continued under current Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman who not only split the company in half and gave the television library and distribution rights to the feature films to CBS, but also sold off the Company's music library, Famous Music.

NTA changed its name to Republic Pictures ( which was previously the name of a minor film studio, whose backlog had been sold to NTA ) in 1986, sold to Spelling Entertainment, Inc. in 1994, and was sold to Viacom in 1999, hence all the material sold to U. M .& M.

** USA Networks ( also including what is now called Syfy ) – Paramount owned a stake starting in 1982, 50 % owner ( with Universal Studios ) from 1987 until 1997, when Paramount / Viacom sold their stake to Universal ( now part of NBCUniversal )

Even after Chris-Craft sold its share of the network to Viacom, WWOR was still commonly regarded as the flagship station since it had long been common practice to accord this status to a network's New York station.

Noggin ran 65 select episodes until 2003, when they were pulled from the program lineup because Sesame Workshop sold its half of the network to Viacom, which already owned the other half.

During this period, the Rangers were owned by Gulf + Western, which was renamed to Paramount Communications in 1989, and sold to Viacom in 1994.

In 1994, Worldvision was incorporated into Republic Pictures and Spelling sold to Viacom.

The theater received its next name, The Theater at Madison Square Garden, in the mid-90s, after Viacom bought Paramount and sold the MSG properties.

In 1997, three years after the Paramount / Viacom merger, that company sold its stake in the networks to Universal ( which, along with parent MCA, changed ownership twice earlier in the 1990s: to Matsushita in 1991, and then Seagrams in 1995, the latter company making Universal Studios the corporate name of its media division in 1997 ).

In 1979, Viacom sold 50 % of Showtime to TelePrompTer.

In 1982, Westinghouse, who had acquired TelePrompTer the previous year, sold its share of Showtime back to Viacom.

The original Viacom was renamed CBS Corporation and got the broadcasting elements, Paramount Television's production operations ( renamed CBS Paramount Television, now two separate arms, CBS Television Studios for production and CBS Television Distribution for syndicated program distribution ), Viacom Outdoor advertising ( renamed CBS Outdoor ), Showtime Networks, Simon & Schuster and Paramount Parks, which the company later sold, while the new Viacom kept Paramount Pictures, MTV Networks, BET Networks, and ( until it was sold off in 2007 ) Famous Music.

Media conglomerate Viacom purchased Neopets, Inc. on 20 June 2005 for $ 160 million and announced plans to focus more on the use of banner ads over the site's existing immersive advertising.

Reflecting in part the troubles of the broadcasting business, in 2005 Viacom wrote off over $ 28 billion from its radio acquisitions and, early that year, announced that it would split itself in two.

Independent company Hollywood Classics now represents Paramount in the theatrical distribution of all the films produced by the various motion picture divisions of CBS over the years, as a result of the Viacom / CBS merger.

On July 10, 2012 during contract negotiations over raising carrier rates the U. S. satellite TV provider, DirecTV's executives approached Viacom with a new proposal and a request to continue broadcasting 17 of Viacom's television networks ( including Nickelodeon, MTV, Logo, and Comedy Central ) during talks, but received no response and thus Viacom ceased transmission to DirecTV's 20 million subscribers.

Ownership of the Boop cartoons has changed hands over the intervening decades due to a series of corporate mergers, acquisitions and divestitures ( mainly involving Republic Pictures and the 2006 corporate split of parent company Viacom into two separate companies ).

Viacom increased its stake in Spelling over the years, finally taking full ownership in 2000.

MTV Jams and their sister networks will be added in summer 2012 as part of a wider agreement between Viacom and Time Warner Cable to allow access to their networks over TWC's tablet applications.

When Viacom took over in 1986, this changed rather drastically.

Owned by Viacom, MTV2 is one of the few cable networks that can be seen over the air.

Monty Sarhan is a Vice President at Viacom, where he has served in several capacities over the years.

MTV Europe was begun under a co-operative agreement between Viacom and BT, which lasted until 1991 when Viacom took over full ownership.