Viacom Pledges To Strengthen Paramount

"We intend to really cultivate new talent to restore Paramount," promised Viacom co-president Tom Freston at the Merrill Lynch Media and Entertainment Conference in Pasadena this week.

Reuters (via Yahoo!) reported that Freston promised to make revitalizing Paramount Studios one of his top priorities for the coming year. "We're in last place among Hollywood studios," he stated, adding that increasing market share would be a goal for the corporation.

Among the other goals are expanded roles in online music and gaming, where a large Star Trek role-playing game has already been licensed, and in specialty film production and distribution. "We've had Paramount Classics, but it's been an also-ran [to] Miramax, Lion's Gate...this is an area we want to be in," he said.

Freston and Les Moonves former CEO of CBS, became co-presidents of Viacom in June. The company has consolidated several operating units since then. Making UPN viable has already been labeled one of their principal goals.

The original Reuters article is at Yahoo!.

Discuss this news item at Trek BBS!
 Add TrekToday RSS feed to your news reader or My Yahoo!
Also a CSI: Crime Scene Investigation fan? Then visit CSIFiles.com!