VIACOM BOSS SOUNDS OFF
SUMNER Redstone fi nally showed his face at Sun Valley yesterday, and the wait was certainly worth it.
The Viacom and CBS chairman flew in specifically for a meeting at former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s request, and planned to head back to Los Angeles immediately after.
But during some downtime Redstone engaged with reporters for over an hour in a free-flowing discussion that touched on everything from his company’s lawsuit against Google and YouTube, to Katie Couric, to Paramount Pictures CEOBrad Grey’s job security and CBS chief Les Moonves’ pay package.
As The Post previously reported, Redstone was upset with Moonves’ reluctance to amend his pay package to more closely tie it to CBS’ stock performance and bring it in line with Viacom bosses Philippe Dauman, Tom Dooley and Redstone himself.
While Redstone conceded that he’d like to see all executives have pay packages that are in line with what stockholders get, he added that he couldn’t draw conclusions about Moonves’ particular needs, and why he resisted changing his compensation structure.
“I’m not sure of Les’ financial needs,” Redstone said. “He’s been through a big divorce, so it might not be practical for him to do that.”
Redstone added that the disagreement has not caused friction between the two, and indeed it appeared as if there wasn’t, as Moonves dropped in to chat briefly with Redstone and his wife over lunch.
Reacting to comments by Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt that Viacom was a company built on litigation, Redstone said that may be so, but he added that there are only two circumstances under which he’ll pull the trigger on a lawsuit: when Viacom is completely right and the issue is extremely important. The YouTube lawsuit meets both of those criteria, he said.
On the rebound of his beloved Paramount, which now claims the top spot in market share thanks to the DreamWorks side of the business, Redstone gave Grey a pat on the back.
“The job Brad’s done has been incredible, and let’s not forget that [Paramount] is his studio and we own DreamWorks,” he said.
As for Couric, Redstone said that despite weak ratings he agreed with Moonves that CBS is better off with Katie than without her.