Sumner Redstone dies at 97

Media mogul Sumner Redstone has dies at the age of 97.

Brian Lowry reported the news for CNN:

Sumner Redstone, a media titan and billionaire who, as chairman of Viacom and National Amusements, drew headlines both for his deal-making as well as his turbulent personal life, died on Tuesday. He was 97.

At his peak, Redstone’s sprawling empire included CBS and Viacom (VIACA), corporations that were the parents of a host of subsidiaries ranging from Paramount Pictures and MTV to Comedy Central and Spike TV.

Meg James from the Los Angeles Times wrote:

Over the years, Redstone outmaneuvered rivals to assemble one of America’s leading entertainment companies, now called ViacomCBS, which boasts CBS, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, BET, Showtime, the Simon & Schuster book publisher and Paramount Pictures movie studio.

“The will to survive is the will to win, too,” he told The Times in 2000.

Redstone died Tuesday at his home in Los Angeles at the age of 97, National Amusements, the Redstone family’s private holding company, announced.

The BBC noted:

Redstone is credited with helping save cinema by developing the multiplex model in the 1960s, bringing movies into shopping malls and having more than one screen per site. His company eventually spanned the worlds of film, TV and publishing.

It controlled TV networks Comedy Central and Nickelodeon and the Blockbuster video rental chain, and helped usher programmes like The Big Bang Theory and CSI into US homes, and blockbusters like Titanic and Top Gun to the silver screen.