Cbs Viacom

VIACOM INC

Founded in 1971 as a spun off from CBS Viacom is a global entertainment and media corporation that produces and distributes branded entertainment through a variety of mediums with preeminent positions in broadcast, cable television, radio, outdoor advertising, and online.

Viacom operates in a number of different industries, including film production, broadcasting, and cable television. The Filmed Entertainment segment includes Paramount Pictures which was acquired back in 1993. It produces, finances, and distributes motion pictures and other entertainment content.

The Media Networks segment includes MTV Networks, BET Networks, and Nickelodeon and they focus on providing content that appeals to advertisers across multiple distribution platforms.

With programming that appeals to audiences in every demographic category across virtually all media, the company is a leader in the creation, promotion, and distribution of entertainment, news, sports, music, and comedy.

The key players in this industry include consumers, channels of distribution, content providers and the talent. These key players possess some bargaining power which can be seen as a threat to Viacom. For example consumer's in this industry range from households or individual consumers to theater retailers. The bargaining power of the consumer's is therefore spread over several segments and not concentrated within a few main players.

In the filmed entertainment business for example, theater retailers such as AMC and Loewe's are the buyers of the films they can therefore decide to not purchase the films if industry giant's such as Viacom do not agree to their terms. This bargaining power of theatre chains is however very limited due to the enormous and lucrative nature of the films produced by big?name studios in the film industry. If a theater chain refuses to accept the terms set forth by a studio such as Paramount Pictures, it could prove costly for them when other high budget and highly advertised films come to market and Paramount refuses to sell the rights to their film to the theater?chain.

Household consumers on the other hand, hold a significant amount of bargaining power over Viacom in the sense that consumers have zero switching costs and can easily choose to consume the plethora of other films and entertainment substitutes that are available to them.

This power held by consumers can however be overturned through differentiation. Studios are able to hedge the threat of consumer buyer power through a differentiation of their film products to minimize buyer concentration within a certain