Inside Move: MySpace melodrama
Did Viacom Space out?
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Monday's headlines over MySpace.com were the latest in a series of media stories touting its triumphs, including a lucrative pact with Google, a deal to download movies and the seven trillionth subscriber.
All this attention has made Viacom execs eager to explain why they didn't snap up MySpace. At media conferences, Viacom execs have said it's simple: The price was too high, and MySpace just didn't fit with Viacom's financial metrics.
According to one company insider, however, Viacom CEO Tom Freston was asked by chairman Sumner Redstone to go to San Francisco to get the deal done but never went.
A company spokesman said, "That's patently untrue."
Ever since Freston and Leslie Moonves were appointed co-equals, there has been speculation over who would emerge on top. If anything, this explanation could signal a higher-than-expected level of tension between Redstone and Freston.
Viacom and News Corp. were the only two congloms known to have been in the bidding for MySpace. News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch shelled out $580 million for the Netco just over a year ago as the centerpiece of Fox Digital Media.
It's proven a good fit for News Corp., and journalists everywhere seem to be lauding the effort.
Viacom's been inking its own deals lately -- Atom Entertainment, Neopets, iFilm, Xfire and others, plus the first-ever distribution deal with Google to stream MTV video clips with embedded advertising on the service. And it's in talks to buy Facebook/Bebo.
But these are smaller pacts that tend to get overshadowed by the MySpace juggernaut.
In truth, the social networking site would have been a terrific partner for MTV, too.
Only time will tell if MySpace can stay trendy forever. But for now, the headlines rankle.
