Viacom's Sumner Redstone: The Drive to Win
N E W Y O R K, June 6, 2001 -- How do you become one of the 10 wealthiest people in the world, and the head of the second-largest media empire on the planet?
Equal parts toil and desire, says Sumner Redstone, billionaire CEO of entertainment conglomerate Viacom, who chronicles his rags-to-riches story in a recently published autobiography, A Passion to Win.
While not exactly a household name, it would be hard to watch TV and movies or read a book without coming in contact with Redstone's holdings. Among them are CBS, Paramount Pictures, MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, Showtime, Blockbuster Video and Simon & Schuster books.
But it's not about the money, says Redstone, who's worth about $14 billion. "I have never, never been motivated by the lure of the dollar," he told ABCNEWS' Good Morning America in an interview today. "My value system hasn't changed from then until now."
Something else is behind his drive to succeed, he explained: "I have an obsessive drive to win. It is the thrill of the deal. It's the feeling that you're going to succeed. You have to have a sense of optimism and a sense of self-confidence. And it's a competition. And I've been driven all my life to win, to prevail, to compete."
Read an Excerpt from Redstone's New Book
Unusual Route to the Top
It's that determination that has driven Redstone, 77, to the top of the corporate world. But his path to the top was a difficult and unusual one.
Redstone grew up during the depression, in a tenement of Jewish immigrants in Boston's West End. He excelled in school, finishing Harvard in three years and working in cryptography in World War Two, helping to crack Japanese codes. Redstone then graduated from Harvard Law School and became a successsful Washington lawyer, arguing cases in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.
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But in the 1960s, Redstone made a career change, helping take over his father's drive-in movie theater business. Redstone expanded the business to indoor screens and trademarked the word "multiplex," but years later, one rival still called him a "two-bit theater operator from Boston."
In 1979, Redstone nearly died in a fire in Boston's Copley Hotel, which he survived by clinging with one hand to a third-story ledge. Forty-five percent of Redstone's body was burned, and doctors thought he might die, but after five operations, Redstone pulled through, although he his right arm barely functions.
Nevertheless, Redstone rebounded to take over debt-laden Viacom in 1987 — at age 63, when most people are planning their retirements. But he downplays the effect of the fire on his desire to make his mark in the business world.
"I had the same value system after the fire as I did before the fire," said Redstone. "The same drive."
Master of the Turnaround
Ignoring advice to sell two of Viacom's struggling assets, MTV and Nickelodeon, he has since made a string of succesful aquisitions: Paramount Pictures, for $10 billion in 1993, Blockbuster Video for $8.4 billion in 1994 and, in 1999, a $91 billion merger with CBS.
Industry observers viewed the Paramount acquisition price as unreasonably steep, causing Viacom to go into debt. But the studio is now one of the top five revenue-earners in Hollywood, and laid claim to last year's highest-grossing movie, Mission Impossible 2, which hauled in about $550 million worldwide.
Similarly, the Blockbuster buyout had pitfalls of its own: Redstone found the company to be poorly managed. In a major strategic shift, Redstone revved up the company by transforming the video-rental industry, adopting a revenue-sharing model with the Hollywood studios. Instead of buying its tapes for, say, $65, Blockbuster acquires them for just a few dollars from the studios and then shares the money from rentals.
Even after this string of turnarounds, Redstone still shows few signs of wanting to retire.
"Viacom is me," Redstone says early on in A Passion to Win. "I have a love affair with this business and this company."
It's a passion that carries a price with it, however. In September of 1999, Redstone's wife, Phyllis, filed for divorce after 52 years of marriage, asking for a record $3 billion of Redstone's fortune. The case remains to be settled.
And what does the future hold for Redstone and Viacom? Are more acquisitions and mergers in the works? For now, he is remaining mum about the possibility that CBS and CNN will pool resources and join their news operations together.
"Realistically, it's not a matter I would ever comment on," said Redstone.
It's a passion that carries a price with it, however. In September of 1999, Redstone's wife, Phyllis, filed for divorce after 52 years of marriage, asking for a record $3 billion of Redstone's fortune. The case remains to be settled.
And what does the future hold for Redstone and Viacom? Are more acquisitions and mergers in the works? For now, he is remaining mum about the possibility that CBS and CNN will pool resources and join their news operations together.
"Realistically, it's not a matter I would ever comment on," said Redstone.