After several changes of ownership and name, Spike currently operates as part of MTV Networks, owned by Viacom.

Country Music Television, also owned by MTV parent Viacom, has a show called Trick My Truck that operates on the same principle, but only customizes semi-trailer trucks.

MGM Television operates three television networks: ThisTV ( co-owned and operated by Weigel Broadcasting ), Epix ( co-owned and operated by Viacom and Lions Gate Entertainment ), and MGM HD.

Paramount Pictures Corporation is a film and television production / distribution company founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom.

* Through the merger with Viacom, they gained U. S. rights to the majority of the Cannon Films library ( except Lifeforce, where some of said rights are owned by Sony via its initial US theatrical distribution by TriStar, once posting it on the website Crackle ), owned for other media by MGM ( who also posted Lifeforce on Hulu and Netflix ).

During the filming of his last Perry Mason movie in the spring of 1993, Raymond Burr fell ill. A Viacom spokesperson told the media that the illness might be related to the malignant kidney that Burr had removed that February.

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 ).

Viacom Inc. (, ), short for " Video & Audio Communications ", is an American global mass media company with interests primarily in, but not limited to, cinema and cable television.

On May 21, Viacom entered into a 50 – 50 joint venture with Indian media company Global Broadcast News to form Viacom 18 which will house Viacom's existing channels in India: MTV, VH1 and Nick as well as Network 18's Bollywood movie business.

Globally, large media conglomerates include Viacom, CBS Corporation, Time Warner, News Corp, Bertelsmann AG, Sony Corporation of America, NBCUniversal, Vivendi, Televisa, The Walt Disney Company, Hearst Corporation, Organizações Globo and Lagardère Group.

As of 2010, The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the US, with News Corporation, Time Warner and Viacom ranking second, third and fourth respectively.

In 2003, the network was no longer a black owned business when it was bought by media conglomerate Viacom for $ 3 billion.

Viacom Media Networks ( known as MTV Networks until 2011 ), is a division of media conglomerate Viacom that oversees the operations of many television channels and Internet brands, including the original MTV ( Music Television ) channel in the United States.

In September 2006, MTV Networks, a division of media conglomerate Viacom, announced that it was acquiring Harmonix on behalf of MTV for $ 175 million .< ref >

According to the 2012 Fortune 500 list, The Walt Disney Company is America's largest media conglomerate in terms of revenue, with News Corporation, Time Warner, Viacom, and CBS Corporation completing the top 5.

* 1986: Viacom switches from a syndicate to a media conglomerate.

* Paramount Pictures Corporation, an American movie studio owned by media conglomerate Viacom

Gawker's coverage of benefit cuts announced December 4, 2007 for freelancers working at media company Viacom has been acknowledged as playing a major role in reinstating many of the workers ' rights.

Viacom, a media conglomerate that includes CBS, UPN, MTV, BET, Comedy Central, Paramount Pictures and Showtime, absorbed CBS Corporation as of 2000.

The two executives continued to snipe at each other through the media even a year after Karmazin left Viacom.

These mergers allowed Viacom to become the second-largest media conglomerate in the world.

CBS Outdoor ( formerly Viacom Outdoor, Infinity Outdoor, Outdoor Systems, Gannett Outdoor and 3M National, among others ) is the outdoor advertising division of media conglomerate CBS Corporation.

He generally considers himself to be supportive of new media despite his role at MTV, once joking, " MTV is part of Viacom, which controls Paramount, and so on and so forth.

Some of the city's media conglomerates include Time Warner, the Thomson Reuters Corporation, the News Corporation, The New York Times Company, NBCUniversal, the Hearst Corporation, and Viacom.

Also, Microsoft purchased a large amount of advertising on Viacom owned broadcasts and online networks.

Finally, Microsoft will also collaborate on promotions and sponsorships for MTV and BET award shows, two Viacom owned cable networks.

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.

On July 11, in a counter response to DirecTV advising its subscribers to view original programming from the affected networks online, Viacom scaled back access to recent episodes of Viacom-owned program content available to the websites of its networks.

As with the old Viacom, the current company owns Viacom International, which is the formal owner of copyrights associated with Viacom's corporate website and its cable networks.

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 ).

In 1985, Viacom acquired Warner's share of Showtime / The Movie Channel, Inc., making them the sole owner of both networks.

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.

It is owned by MTV Networks, a division of Viacom, which also owns Paramount Pictures, and networks such as MTV and Nickelodeon.

Because MCA's original agreement with Paramount Pictures on the USA Network prohibited either partner from operating cable networks outside the joint venture, Viacom had been in breach of contract ever since they bought Paramount in 1994, thanks to MTV Networks.

Viacom also changed the format of CMT, modeling it after sister networks MTV and VH1 to include shows and movies in addition to music videos.

The network was called VH1 Country until Memorial Day Weekend 2006 ( launching in 1999 and predating the merger of CBS Cable networks TNN and CMT into Viacom ), complementing that network until Viacom shifted VH1 towards more pop culture programming while using the CMT brand for all of their country music programming.

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

In the United States, 1080i is the preferred format for most broadcasters, with Discovery Communications, Viacom, Time Warner, Comcast owned networks broadcasting in the format ; along with most smaller broadcasters.

Companies, most notably Viacom and Time Warner, expressed interest in buying the firm to exhibit their content on their cable networks.

In 1985, Warner sold its interest in Showtime / The Movie Channel to Viacom, making them the sole owner of both networks.

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 ).