National Amusements Should Again Push for CBS/Viacom, BTIG Analyst Says
National Amusements, controlling shareholder of CBS and Viacom, should force a merger of the two, BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield wrote Friday. NA seemingly has no intentions of selling either, and the scale and size of each is such that it's…
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unlikely acquisitions could diversify them away from their legacy businesses and the challenges in the TV advertising and cable network subscription business, he said: Failed individual CBS and Viacom efforts at mergers and acquisitions like CBS-Starz and Viacom-Scripps (see 1707310062) might have gone better if CBS-Viacom were combined. BTIG said a CBS-Viacom brings cost savings from a unified TV and film studio, removes inefficiencies, better positions the combined company for direct-to-consumer business with Viacom producing not-for-linear TV content for CBS All Access, cuts the risk of carriage disputes, helps in the pursuit of other M&A in and outside of the legacy media sector, and would give more cash flow and scale to help pursue sports rights. NA -- which backed and then called off CBS-Viacom talks last year (see 1612120060) -- didn't comment.