CBS Corporation

CBS Corporation is an American mass media corporation focused on commercial broadcasting, publishing, and television production, with most of its operations in the United States. The president and chief executive of the company is Leslie Moonves. Sumner Redstone, owner of National Amusements, is CBS's majority shareholder and serves as executive chairman. The company began trading on the NYSE on January 3, 2006. Until then, the corporation was known as Viacom, and is the legal successor to said company. A new company, keeping the Viacom name, was spun off from CBS. CBS, not Viacom, retains control of over-the-air television (CBS, CW) and radio broadcasting, TV production and distribution, publishing, pay-cable, basic cable (Pop), and recording formerly owned by the larger company. CBS has its headquarters in CBS Building, Midtown, Manhattan, New York City, United States.

History

Early years

Viacom was created in 1970 as the television syndication division of CBS, and was spun off in 1971. However, in 1999, Viacom acquired its former parent, by this time also named CBS Corporation, formerly Westinghouse Electric. The prior CBS Corporation also owned CMT and The Nashville Network (now Spike), which remained Viacom properties after the 2005 split, but the prior CBS did not own UPN, Showtime, Paramount Television, Paramount Parks, or Simon and Schuster.

CBS

CBS (an initialism of the network's former name, the Columbia Broadcasting System) is an American commercial broadcast television network that is the flagship properties of CBS Corporation. The company is headquartered at the CBS Building in New York City with major production facilities and operations in New York City (at the CBS Broadcast Center) and Los Angeles (at CBS Television City and the CBS Studio Center).

CBS is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network", in reference to the company's iconic logo, in use since 1951. It has also been called the "Tiffany Network", alluding to the perceived high quality of CBS programming during the tenure of its founder William S. Paley. It can also refer to some of CBS's first demonstrations of color television, which were held in a former Tiffany & Co. building in New York City in 1950.

The network has its origins in United Independent Broadcasters Inc., a collection of 16 radio stations that was purchased by Paley in 1928 and renamed the Columbia Broadcasting System. Under Paley's guidance, CBS would first become one of the largest radio networks in the United States, and eventually one of the Big Three American broadcast television networks. In 1974, CBS dropped its former full name and became known simply as CBS, Inc. The Westinghouse Electric Corporation acquired the network in 1995, renamed its corporate entity to the current CBS Broadcasting, Inc. in 1997, and eventually adopted the name of the company it had acquired to become CBS Corporation. In 2000, CBS came under the control of Viacom, which was formed as a spin-off of CBS in 1971. In late 2005, Viacom split itself into two separate companies, and re-established CBS Corporation – through the spin-off of its broadcast television, radio and select cable television and non-broadcasting assets – with the CBS television network at its core. CBS Corporation is controlled by Sumner Redstone through National Amusements, which also controls the current Viacom.

Corporation

A corporation is a company or group of people authorized to act as a single entity (legally a person) and recognized as such in law. Early incorporated entities were established by charter (i.e. by an ad hoc act granted by a monarch or passed by a parliament or legislature). Most jurisdictions now allow the creation of new corporations through registration.

Corporations come in many different types but are usually divided by the law of the jurisdiction where they are chartered into two kinds: by whether or not they can issue stock, or by whether or not they are for profit.

Where local law distinguishes corporations by ability to issue stock, corporations allowed to do so are referred to as "stock corporations", ownership of the corporation is through stock, and owners of stock are referred to as "stockholders." Corporations not allowed to issue stock are referred to as "non-stock" corporations, those who are considered the owners of the corporation are those who have obtained membership in the corporation, and are referred to as a "member" of the corporation.