This semester I am interning at Viacom. Viacom is a mass media industry with interests primarily in cinema and cable television. When researching about Viacom I found out that their networks headquarters are located in New York and London. They also have other international offices located in Berlin, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Warsaw, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Singapore, Budapestand and Sydney amongst others. It is a public company currently holding around 9,000 employees based off it’s Fiscal Year for 2015.

Viacom’s primary business is to operate as an entertainment content company in the United States and internationally. The company creates television programs, motion picture, short-form content, applications, games, consumer products, social media, and other entertainment content. It operates through two divisions , Media Networks and Filmed Entertainment.

The Media Networks segment provides entertainment content and related branded products for consumers approximately through 250 locally programmed and operated TV channels. Some of the more known TV channels that they handle include Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, MTV, VH1, SPIKE, BET, CMT, TV Land, Nick at Nite, Nick Jr., Channel 5 (UK), Logo, Nicktoons, TeenNick, Paramount Channel, and others, as well as through online, mobile, and apps.

The Filmed Entertainment segment produces, finances, acquires, and distributes motion pictures, television programming, and other entertainment content under the Paramount Pictures, Paramount Vantage, Paramount Classics, Paramount Animation, Insurge Pictures, Nickelodeon Movies, MTV Films, and Paramount Television brands. This segment shows movies through home entertainment, television, and digital licensing. The company releases its content through download-to-own, download-to-rent, DVDs, Blu-ray discs, transactional video-on-demand, pay television, subscription video-on-demand, basic cable television, free television, and free video-on-demand, as well as airlines and hotels.

Viacom has 3 buildings in New York. Two is located in the middle of Time Square and the other one is located downtown west at Hudson St. I am interning at the downtown location on the 7th floor. I work as a UI/UX intern in Viacom’s Music + Entertainment department. Since there really isn’t a designated floor for designers we share the same floor with employees from Spike and Comedy Central.

Two recent artles about Viacom:

http://www.nypost.com/2016/10/20/viacom-cbs-merger-could-be-in-place-by-thanksgiving/

This article basically talks about the potential merger of Viacom and CBS happening soon. This merger was predicted since the recent step down of CEO Tom Dooley. Viacom is looking to change things around with the leadership since their drop in young viewers who are shifting towards online paid to view streaming services.  Viacom hopes to merge back with CBS after it’s past split in order to develop a better strategy in sales and pay down their debt.

Tom Dooley Steps Down as Interim Viacom CEO

This article talks about  Tom Dooley, former Viacom CEO stepping down as CEO for Viacom. Viacom’s recent drop with younger viewers moving from pay-television platforms to digital and streaming services has hit them hard. The board believes that a new and It talks about the  future of Viacom and where it is going in the company.