"Team,
As you have likely heard by now, on Monday CBS and its Special Committee filed a lawsuit against National Amusements, Inc -- its controlling shareholder, and Viacom’s, too. While Viacom isn’t named as a party in the lawsuit, it obviously creates a lot of news around us as it relates to the potential for a recombination with CBS.
Given the level of noise, I wanted to make sure you heard from me. I know the news cycles can be distracting but I would ask you – once again! – to please stay focused on our business and continuing to execute on all our growth initiatives. You have done an incredible job at this so far.
I also want to take the opportunity to again remind you of all the progress that we have made. As you know, we:
• Achieved three straight quarters of share growth at our flagships, and the turnaround at Paramount is taking hold.
• Rebuilt and strengthened our relationships with distributors, including renewing 50% of our distribution base, and struck innovative distribution deals with mobile operators around the world.
• Have rapidly grown our Advanced Marketing Solutions and associated revenues -- an increasingly important and differentiated area for Viacom.
• Recently launched Viacom Digital Studios to aggressively grow Viacom’s exposure to the space; an initiative that is off to a very strong start, with social video views up more than 130% in April.
• Are continuing to see International networks fire on all cylinders, with the business on track for another record year.
• Are making a range of important moves in consumer products, recreation and live events – including getting 12 Tony nods apiece for SpongeBob SquarePants: The Musical and Mean Girls.
• And, we continue to make progress with our important cost transformation efforts. While not always easy – like some of the organizational changes we made yesterday – it’s important we continue to find ways to operate more efficiently and effectively.
To be clear, this is just the tip of the iceberg and more great things are in the pipeline as we look to the balance of the fiscal year and beyond.
I want you to know how proud I am of all of these accomplishments, and your ability to stay focused. And I need to ask that you keep at it, as it’s likely the noise will continue. Please know that in an industry changing as much as ours is, noise is pretty inevitable. Many of our peers, after all, are dealing with no shortage of M&A speculation, too.
Please know we will of course share any additional information if and when we can. Thank you for everything you do, day-in and day-out, to push our company forward.
Best,
Bob"