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Paramount Pictures Studios
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and
distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood.
Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is
America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film
studio still headquartered in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles.
Paramount is consistently ranked as one of the top-grossing movie
studios.Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production
and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood.
Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is
America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film
studio still headquartered in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles.
Paramount is consistently ranked as one of the top-grossing movie
studios.
2005–present: Paramount today
CBS Corporation/Viacom split
Reflecting in part the troubles of the broadcasting business, in 2005
Viacom wrote off over $28 billion from its radio acquisitions and, early
that year, announced that it would split itself in two. The split was
completed in January 2006.
Among the assets that went to the new CBS Corporation are the CBS
television and radio networks, the Infinity radio-station chain (now CBS
Radio), Paramount Television (now CBS Television Studios), UPN (which
merged with Time Warner's The WB to become The CW), and the Showtime
Networks pay TV unit which includes Showtime, The Movie Channel and Flix.
CBS was also given control of Paramount Parks which it sold to Cedar
Fair Entertainment Company in June 2006 for $1.24 billion.
Paramount Pictures is now lumped in with MTV, BET, and other highly
profitable channels owned by the new Viacom.
With the announcement of the split of Viacom, Dolgen and Lansing were
replaced by former television executives Brad Grey and Gail Berman. The
decision was made to split Viacom into two companies, which in turn led
to a dismantling of the Paramount Studio/Paramount TV infrastructure,
with the current Paramount, consisting only of the movie studio,
retaining only about one-quarter its former size under Dolgen and
Lansing. The Paramount Television studio was made part of CBS in the
split and the remaining businesses were sold off or parceled out to
other operating groups. Paramount's home entertainment unit continues to
distribute the Paramount TV library through CBS DVD, as both Viacom and
CBS Corporation are controlled by Michael Redstone's National
Amusements.
In 2009, CBS stopped using the Paramount name in its series and
changed the name of the production arm to CBS Television Studios,
eliminating the Paramount name from television, to distant itself from
the latter. It is one of only 2 of the Big Six to have this fate (the
other being Columbia Pictures, although unlike Paramount, it is still a
direct sister to its former TV arm).
Joint venture with DreamWorks
On December 11, 2005, The Paramount Motion Pictures Group announced
that it had purchased DreamWorks SKG (which was co-founded by former
Paramount executive Jeffrey Katzenberg) in a deal worth $1.6 billion.
The announcement was made by Brad Grey, chairman and CEO of Paramount
Pictures, who noted that enhancing Paramount's pipeline of pictures is a
"key strategic objective in restoring Paramount's stature as a leader in
filmed entertainment." The agreement does not include DreamWorks
Animation SKG Inc., the most profitable part of the company that went
public the previous year.
Under the deal, Paramount is required to distribute the DreamWorks
animated films for a small fee intended only to cover Paramount's out of
pocket costs with no profit to the studio, including the Shrek franchise
(and ending for the 2004 installment, Shrek 2). The first film
distributed under this deal is Over the Hedge.
The deal closed on February 6, 2006. This acquisition was seen at the
time as a stopgap measure as Brad Grey had been unsuccessful in
assembling sufficient films for production and distribution and the
DreamWorks films would fill the gap.
On October 6, 2008, Paramount and DreamWorks announced the joint
venture was ending and that DreamWorks would be seeking new distributors
for its films.
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