I guess there is some moral to the story to the news that octagenarian boss Sumner Redstone gave Viacom CEO Tom Freston the heave-ho for not moving aggressively enough into the Internet. Sheesh. Take any media company (with the exception of News Corp. which is blessed with Fox Interactive chief Ross Levinsohn) and you’ll see an org chart still dominated by dodos who don’t get the online joke.
I don’t think Freston, per se, was anti-Internet. Heck, MTV.com has done great work in that regard but got its ass handed to it by AOL during that big charity concert a year or so ago. But now it’s Bubble 2.0 time and corporate boards are demanding that their executives be on the acquisiton prowl for social network plays, tagged content services, and rich media sites.
There are days when I really miss the big online media game, but for the time being I need to sharpen my chops on the buyside — going back into production would be a step backwards — before yearning for the biz dev end of the business.
All because he wasn’t willing to top Ruperts bid for MySpace (what was that again $425 million?). I keep hearing alternate things about MTV – they get this latest iteration of the Internet; they don’t. I am not sure which is true. I do think big brand names (like Coke and MTV) can’t assume that their appeal amongst a demographic makes them shoe-ins to success in this space. Will Sumner be able to gobble up Facebook now?