Reuters has this juicy report on an interview that Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone had with Charlie Rose last night. The hard news: Viacom has looked at but won’t buy Facebook because it’s too expensive.
“We would not consider Facebook,” Redstone said. “We looked at it. The price is too high.”
If Viacom finds Facebook too expensive, then maybe Facebook is pricing itself out of the market…The second piece of hardish news: Redstone got coy when asked if Viacom is interested in buying YouTube.
Redstone dodged questions on whether Viacom was interested in buying top online video site YouTube. “It’s a very good company,” he said of the 19-month old site that lets users share homemade videos.
Now, for the purely titillating news, Redstone admits that he was “humiliated” when former CEO Tom Freston failed to buy MySpace, which went to rival mogul Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. instead. Freston’s fumble on MySpace is widely recognized as the reason for the popular executive’s ouster from Viacom.
“Before Rupert got into the act, MySpace was sitting there for $500 million and Tom didn’t take it,” Redstone said.
Update: The video of Redstone’s interview with Rose is here. (Hat tip to Rafat.)
Cynthia Brumfield at 12:15 PM|Comments(0)
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