viacom faces more competition. mtv and comedy central target questioning whether it's worth paying for the cable tv bundle. viewers have an explosion of digital options. viacom's restructuring comes as time warner launches a stand alone streaming app, hbo now. the company's first move outside the pay tv bundle. plus there's an infinite amount of niche content on youtube and not to mention original new shows on netflix, amazon and hulu. >> it's dictating even more of a focus on programming given the dollars on the screen. so you have to really gut the costs that are not essential you're not seeing on the screen. >> reporter: last fall doman increased the amount of revenue to other platforms not mentioned by nielson from 30% to 50%. now the company said they'll put savings from its restructuring into data analysis and tech development so it can compete better in this new digital content world. for "nightly business report," i'm julia boorstin in los angeles. >>> informatica in the biggest buyout of the year. we begin

let us turn to viacom. it is a known fact that viacom is sort of a media disaster. it became evident yesterday. according to "the wall street journal," goodwill has turned into a bad will. $400 million was on bad shows. it is enough to make you yield for the old days of mtv. we bring in a twisted view on media. this is not a surprise. what is the viacom message? what is the lesson there for the rest of the industry. guest: you want to be aware of changing audience preferences. in the canary and the clean old mine -- coal mine, you want to investigate where they're going. the advertising products need to match that. it is interesting that viacom has complained about nielsen a little too much, but i think there's a little something to that too. it is mindful that if you look at set-top box made of that their show -- that their show may declines. it is not surprising that there is a sentiment around traditional advertising is really negative right now. brendan: it is a surprising thing that there are a couple of shows doing really well within viacom. should you produce

erik: let's talk about viacom. new strategy for reversing his stocks through cost cuts. a drop in ratings hit the cable networks hard. paul sweeney is here. media for so long was doing so well. fire, slipping behind. paul: consumers are not watching as much over the air or cable television as they used to. they are watching over the top video on hulu. viacom has had a lot of ratings challenges across the networks. it is always one thing or another. nickelodeon required them to invest some more. it is really the price of investing continuously in the program. stephanie: i would think the content in some of those networks is where we're seeing competition. someone who was watching mtv or comedy central that is where you are getting short form videos for kids. there are so many more options now. paul: what happened, over the last three or four years they license their content to netflix, and they got a lot of money for it. it was great for the stock, for their story. but now they are starting to see the downside of th

viacom is down about 2%.akes a crack at this and site some industry watchers saying that streaming and netflix and all those things are about half of the reason that we're having trouble in cable. >> you know, i invest in the space quite a bit. this is my area. these companies pay dividends. here's the problem with viacom and i'm speaking as an investor. talk about the content in a second. 90% plus of eps growth as far back as i can remember comes from stack repurchasing. there is no cash flow growth driving earnings. it's financial engineering. i'm not the only person that knows that. this is a share countdown from 600 plus million to 400 million, listen, it's great -- >> cramer said it's like a creeping tender. >> that doesn't work. you need growth. i think what's different is about the way media is changing in terms of driving growth. think about companies that have emerged in the last 7, 8 years. arianna huffington of the "huffington post," 210 million uniques sucking advertising dollars out of the ecosys

cheryl: looking at viacom and who they've got. if you look at mtv for instance and this surprised me. reality shows, they've been doing a lot of, that that's the big thing for them. >> right. cheryl: now the reality shows aren't rating anymore? >> right, reality shows are cheap to produce but the demand is completely gone a totally different world from where things were. cheryl: and really quick, here's the question for our viewers, would you drive a car that automatically stops when it sees a stop sign? you got to explain this to me. the car sees a stop sign? >> sense nors front of the car and the sign has sensors so they talk to each other. this is basic stuff compared to where things are going. in a few years talking about fully automated. the car drives itself you're reading a book, this is relatively basic in comparison. cheryl: this freaks me out and it's not a stop sign or read the information wrong. >> do we trust humans to drive or robots? i trust robots. cheryl: you trust a robot to drive a car? >> absolutely. failure ra

cramer i'm going hit viacom.y the way, yesterday when the news came out after the bell viacom's taking a charge of $785 million and suspending its buyback, many might have thought the stock would be down sharply. it's not. down less than 1%. still the news is interesting to focus on in part because it may at least give a sense of larger trends though some say it's specific to viacom itself. the charge itself much of it $430 million of it is coming from writing down essentially what used to be the expected life of your produced series that go into syndication. in this case for example, csi, community, entourage, they don't have as long a life as they used to. why? netflix. they don't go into cindysyndication and produce the same profitability over a longer period of time. so the write-downs to a certain extent in programming of that the 785 million are related to that, and also related to competitive reality programming, which again they have to burn off after speaking to management over as little as three months

viacom also owned cbs then and now.as the kind of story that wasn't really going to resonate with my black audience on bet, so i was looking for another outlet since i had the interview, the exclusive, another outlet to broadcast the interview. so since viacom had bought bet and they also owned cbs i first go to cbs and say i've got this interview, and i'm happy to sell it to cbs but let me do it on "48 hours," whatever, "60 minutes," give me a place to do the interview, but i'll do it on cbs because i've got the exclusive. oh, you don't have it, dan rather's going to get that. i said, you don't understand, it's on tape. cbs says show me some of the tape. i showed them some of the tape. three times cbs passed on the interview because rather and others -- i love dan rather it's not about rather, but the network was trying to get the interview for their big guy, dan rather. they didn't want to give tavis smiley the interview. but iez already done it and taped it. cbs passed three times, i went to abc, they bought it. it a

quarterly sales fell at viacom. earnings beat estimates. viacom is controlled by sumner redstone.ompany says it will take a charge to write down tv shows that did not attract viewers. the economy in spain has not grown this fast since before the financial crisis. spain's gdp rose 9/10 of a percent in the first quarter the fastest pace in seven years. spain is coming out of a record recession and the jobless rate is 24% more than twice the euro area average. hillary clinton has a new issue. a challenger for the democratic nomination for president. senator bernie sanders of vermont will formally announce today that he is running. sanders is in fact a socialist who usually both democrat. he could vote -- who usually votes democrat. he could force clinton to deal with the party's left wing. a bloomberg exclusive. a complicated tax story. george soros could be facing a tax bill of nearly $7 billion. it is the cost of a tax loophole that congress closed back in 2008. soros and other hedge fund managers have been allowed to defer taxes on the fees they get paid by clients by immediately

viacom is dealing with a persistent slump in u.s. ad sales, but the ceo sees improvement ahead. >> the market looks to be strong. we are very confident going into the upfront season with the strength of the marketplace. with some of the shows we have rolling out, we are quite hopeful that we will see improvement as the year progresses in our ad sales performance. emily: viacom posted a $53 million loss in the quarter due to layoffs and write-downs on underperforming shows. bitcoin startup circle internet financial has just raised capital from investors including goldman sachs. that brings the total funding to $76 million. the ceo says he hopes to work with goldman on a commercial basis as the bitcoin business grows. to our lead, salesforce, the cloud giant built from the ground up, may be on the block. may. who is big and bold enough to buy salesforce and will they sell? if it happens, it will likely be the largest technology takeover in history. the company was approached by a potential acquirer who has not been identified. the list

i guess we can start off with the viacom.nnounced that re restructuring a couple weeks back. writing down a number of shows they had on there. networks, as well. cutting jobs. they reported what was in line in terms of cable network results. advertising declines. currency did impact them. overall you had that large restructure which did have that impact. they did seem to be ahead of some estimates. looking here. they do appear to have been ahead there. higher equity income. a number of other things. generally not a bad quarter at viacom. stock not doing much. sumner redstone was on the call in listening mode. they tell you he is listening. as for time warner cable, speaking of rob marcus about 40 minutes from now, the ceo -- >> how did you get in? >> i kind of didn't. that is a story for another day. we are happy to have him and he will be here at the new york stock exchange. they made a lot of progress in terms of at least getting their physical plant in order. when you are sort of off the radar because everybody thinks you

it was more vietnamese invasion into viacom. kt: will you talk about another part of the decision nixon made was to have negotiations? you were already negotiating publicly in geneva. in paris and that was going nowhere? john: we were negotiating publicly and privately and we had some secret talks. and we reached an agreement that just on the eve of the presidential election in 1968, a pattern that repeats itself for years later. the greatest pressure to reach some kind of agreement was before our election on a bombing halt exchange and we would stop bombing in exchange for them lowering the intensity of their attacks on south vietnamese cities. we also agreed the south vietnamese parties which represented at the peace talks which is what led to what for many people was an absurd discussion for many people on the shape of the table? how to shape the negotiating table in order to reflect the 2 opposite views? we felt of the viacom should not be viewed as a separate party and the south vietnamese government wanted to be separate f

weak ratings and online competition are hurting viacom.hat is the parent company of comedy central, spike to be, and mtv. viacom is taking a $785 million charge. mtv's ratings are down 34% in the first quarter. comedy central fell 30% as well. those are your top stories on this tuesday morning. coming up, we will talk to doug high on rand paul's announcement at noon eastern that is the announcement. we will talk to doug at 8:25 a.m. california continues to do with a shortage in the state and we will say how u.s. water consumption compares to that around the world. now, cutting the cord and the advent of cheaper, slimmer streaming services was supposed to sound the death knell for cable companies. sling tv has suffered a few setbacks itself. on the weekend, subscribers were plagued by error messages while trying to watch the final four ncaa-esque ballgames -- ncaa basketball games. there are caps on the number of people who can subscribe. joining me now is leo hindery. communications guru of sorts. thanks for coming on the show and spending

>> kelly, viacom announcing a restructuring.giant announcing it will take a pretax charge of about $785 million in the quarter ended march 3 1st and the company expects to have annual cost savings of about $350 million. viacom also announcing it will temporarily pause share purchases under its 20 billion stock reprach program saying it anticipates resuming those repurchases no later than october of this year when it begins its next fiscal year. viacom said it's reorganizing three domestic groups into two no organizations but the company does not detail how many layoffs we should expect and which areas we will see the layoffs which we can only expect are coming. back over to you. >> we'll stay tuned for further info on that. april is shaping up to be a critical month for apple. the company gearing up to release its first smart watch, of course, and it could be ready also to return a big chunk of cash to investors. we'll get you those details in a moment. and speaking of cash somebody here says investors should get ready for a flo

liz: viacom shares surging online competition.nt of mtv, nickelodeon, and lay off as many as 400 people and take a pretty significant charge of $785 million. viacom blaming the rise of online streaming services in part for a huge drop in first quarter ratings. both nickelodeon and mtv plunged 34% from last year. bring back snookie. david: even when they're competitors you don't like to see layoffs. never like to see layoffs. >>> how about a college degree with the cup of joe? starbucks is teaming up with arizona state university to pay for the full cost of a degree for employees. we'll talk to the head of the program at the university. that is coming up next. liz: signs of life at samsung as profits decline slow down but they're still there. is it the new smartphone, the galaxy 6, that will be the secret to revamping sales and taking on apple? the valentine reviews and investor reaction are on its side. stay tuned. [ male announcer ] some come here to build something smarter. ♪ some come here to build something stronger. others co

viacom in germany higher. >> weinstein company is in talks to share it's tv business to itv. a deal could be worth up to $950 million. weinstein is well-known for movies such as the kings speech and the artist. they bought the company behind the voice and left field entertainment that produces pawn stars. price action is up about 1% in the u.k. >> never heard of pawn stars. >> i haven't. >> maybe we should watch it. >> i think it's supposed to be sunny. we should be watching tv. the celebrations in iran could be divided already. we cross live to teheran after the short break. >>> u.s. futures pointing to a mixed open after a volatile day on wall street and republican rand paul gets to set to officially join the race for the white house later today. >> now a divide between washington and iran emerged after people took to the streets to celebrate a landmark deal. it's still under negotiation adding the measures would likely be lifted gradually but iran's top negotiator said sanctions would be lifted once a deal is signed. we're joined by the bureau of nbc news for more on that

. >>> and viacom announcing it will take a $785 million charge in its latest quarter. it's also going to lay off employees, do some restructuring. the charge of write downs of underperforming tv shows. the media company will also suspend the buyback program for now at least. shares initially then reversed course before the close. the stock was 1.5% higher at $68.60 but you can see what happened after 4:00 p.m. >>> 3-d systems is buying easy way, that's a chinese based 3-d printing sales and services provider. in terms of the deal not disclosed. shares were up more than 4% to $28.67. and the health care real estate investment trust ventas will buy a hospital operator for nearly $2 billion. the company also says it will spin off its nursing facilities into a separate reit. shares up 5% to $76.90. >>> the high-profile prosecutor trying to clean up wall street suffered a potential setback late last week. and it has the potential to under do other insider trading aces he thought he'd won. >> reporter: a big loss for new york's powerful united states attorney whose string of

scarlet: yes, scarlet -- yes, viacom is getting job cuts involved though no exact numbers were given,ax charge of 785 million dollars in the first quarter and annual cost savings of about 350 million dollars. they are going to temporarily suspend its share buybacks and it will resume the buybacks by october. during the regular session right here is during the after recession, so it took a big leg down and then it rebounded. it is not very heavy and it is not very active, so take this all with a grain of salt, but this stock is moving on its latest announcement. also, regarding headlines on greece, regarding a few minutes ago, i just want to recap this to you, the president is begin to lawmakers in athens, and he said that voters asked for radical change back on october 25 and they need answers on the country's bailout. as you know, greece is running out of cash to pay back imf loans, and this has been a drag on the euro, even as auditing of easing has pushed it lower. greek leaders are negotiated the conditions to perform the bailout, and last week, they said there were not a lot of d

melissa: a huge restructuring at viacom.rge parts of its businesses into new organizations. expect it to take a project nearly $8 million. companies feeling pressure from online competitors. the tsa is rd guilty of notoriously long waits at the airport. it may also be guilty of taking your cash. are you kidding? the miami baseball team and is to delay their first game of the season despite having a retractable roof. they never have too much money or too much baseball. ♪ it is. ♪ ♪ honey, we need to talk. we do? i took the trash out. i know. and thank you so much for that. i think we should get a medicare supplement insurance plan. right now? [ male announcer ] whether you're new to medicare or not, you may know it only covers about 80% of your part b medical expenses. it's up to you to pay the difference. so think about an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. like all standardized medicare supplement insurance plans they help cover some of what medicare doesn't pay. i did a

among our stocks to watch today, viacom announcing restructuring. the company is going to cut jobs and abandon required titles and reorganize three domestic network groups into two new organizations. they're halting the 20 billion dollar share buy back program as a result. and shares are down sharply and the company says it's lead eye drug failed to meet one of the main goals in a second late stage study and that's down 32%. shares of clovis oncology getting a boost. granting break through designation for an ovarian cancer treatment and dyax with a public offering of its common stock. >> let's check on the markets this morning. we'll show you the futures even though yesterday's experience makes me wonder why do we bother. but the dow opens higher up by 14 points if everything stays the same. s&p would open flat and the nasdaq would open higher by a little more than two points. let's show you what's going on with europe. the unexpected rally yesterday where investors decided bad news was good news. we now see that continue in europe. france ftse germ

literally replacing traditional television and that should be a big scare to the discoveries, the viacomsally everyone out there in traditional tvland, including nbc. it should be concerning that consumers are shifting to ad free television. >> what are the risks? amazon? are they real risks? >> what i would think about it as the risk of amazon or the risk of hbo going directly to consumers with hbo now. you saw the apple event. these are big changes to the ecosystem. the issue is as more people make it easier to cut the cord, that actually plays right into netflix's favor. so greater competition is actually good for netflix. because once you've cut the $70 cable bill and you're only paying for netflix and amazon or netflix and hulu and netflix and hbo now, for $24 a month you can get netflix and hbo without having to pay for multichannel television, there's a tremendous amount of content for a lot less than any of us on air pay for cable, let alone consumer as it are watching this right now. >> i want to you stick around, rich, because i want to bring in barton crockett from fbr, he's th

a lot of these companies are experimenting, even viacom with nickelodeon making that available to parentsinternet is an experiment to see what kinds of programs work over-the-top. we know netflix with over 30 million subscribers, that model works. what see how the individual channels work. do people want to go a la carte. that is unproven. alix: i just want to watch "game of thrones." coming up, linkedin announcing it latest acquisition. what will it ring to be professional networking site? -- what will it bring to the national networking site? ♪ alix: here are the top stories we are watching ahead of the closing bell. ge is close to a deal to sell a real estate portfolio worth $30 million to blackstone and wells fargo. the agreement could be reached as early as tomorrow and would further the goal of shrinking ge capital. california regulators finding pg&e corp. $1.6 million for a deadly natural gas pipeline explosion in 2010. the fine is the largest penalty in the agency's history. the explosion destroyed 38 homes and killed eight people. yale university student getting a sit in today ou

experiencing hundreds of millions of views, and so when they pitched the idea to spike which is owned by viacomhe chance. alix: spike is not necessarily a channel that i watch when i go home, what is the meaning of putting on an younger network like that? anousha: spike was very male targeted, but this will help them broaden their audience with celebrities and something that has a wide audience already which is lip-synching. alix: i have to say, i am pretty interesting, i will have to watch it if i am awake. "fast and furious 7" is screening this weekend, and why is this so famous where it has had seven movies? anousha: the great thing is is that it does not have superheroes, and it will be the biggest film yet, it is forecast to earn $470 million just this weekend, so for universal, this is a huge deal, and like i said, there will also be more of them. alix: any idea there will be an eighth ninth, tenth movie in this franchise? anousha: even though paul walker died during filming, they have found a way to say goodbye to him in this film, and the executive director indicates there could be as m

the market cap of netflix now exceeds that of some real content companies -- cbs, viacom.es, netflix has "house of cards," but it is not a content factory. bloomberg west editor at large cory johnson is following the netflix story as he has for months. stephanie: hold on. cory, you have some action today. cory: a little purple, a little red. stephanie: that was yesterday. erik, you turn it out every day. do you have plans tonight, cory? you are not watching "house of cards." what are you doing after work with that jacket on? cory: we will go over that later. it's interesting what netflix is doing with content. house of cards, oranges the new black, a couple other shows they have added. "daredevil." it's interesting what they are doing. last season they maintained that "house of cards" would have value for many years. if you want to have the bull case in this company, the bull case is they will add subscribers internationally and that will be even bigger than the domestic market. erik: it is growing a pretty much the same pace as the domestic market. cory: it is. and there

it will cost viacom $780 million to film some of their poorly rated shows.y owned paramount pictures, mtv, as well as others. that was our stage manager blocking the screen. disney and 20th century fox make the movies available digitally for the first time ever. apple -- >> still wondering what hit him. give very much, lauren. >> revealing he left his post with delivery of plans to make contact with afghanistan's. listen to what lieutenant colonel tony schaefer said last night on o'reilly. >> there was evidence that he was going to the other side. he had a deliver it plan. he made contacts with the locals. he wanted to move. he made contact with the russians because he wanted to talk with russian organized crime. clearly he was not all fair. stuart: the speak to the president and the administration must have known what he was about to do. judy miller is with us. why did they send out susan rice ? >> he served with honor and distinction. yet another memorable susan rice phrase. i do not understand why they could not just have left it at we do not leave anybod

we felt of the viacom should not be viewed as a separate party and the south vietnamese government wanted to be separate from us. how do you achieve that in the shape of a negotiation? we had an oval table with 2 small tables that do not quite touch they oval table. >> is sounds of a work of art. john: it was like a contest. we got so much mail from people around the world suggesting different shapes of tables. [laughter] professor smyser: an interesting thing. this was the ambassador -- and at the johnson administration. he tried very hard. he knew very well nothing could ever be done in public so he tried very hard to get the south vietnamese to join us for secret talks. the idea was to have breaks and during the breaks he would hook his arm and take him aside and said don't you want to have a little coffee break or a little tea? but first, the north vietnamese resistant. they wouldn't play that game because they wouldn't want to do something with what the russians and chinese would wonder what is going on. john: i had been responsible for finding the safe house we would be in along wit

you can look at viacom scripps, amc.ring disney not because it will be marginalized, but espn is considered such a core for so many of these bundles, despite how much money they charge. what's interesting is the impact not as large on those that provide it. we are owned by comcast. we always need to point that out. it's not a particularly profitable service to bring content because they are paying all the content providers that bring it to you. margins however, marginal cost for a new broadband subscriber, that's zero. that's why that business is so much more important. that's perhaps why that part of the business is getting particular scrutiny from anti-trust regulators as they continue to look at comcast's plan to buy time warner cable where. we go from here the bundle itself can be economical for many consumers when you get to a certain price point. ott offerings starting to pro-life late. over the top offering. sling tv from dish is one of them. we'll see what apple tv comes with. that could be very important. how sl

but i certainly feel like my most recent book this book is set in the viacom is kind of an investigatorf physical things, how countries are structured and what that says about the job of american society as well. >> i think being from the former soviet whatever you get political. i just want to capture sort of the feeling of what it's like to be in these two giant countries, america and russia. i was privileged people born in one superpower the collapse and then superpower that is doing great. so if you like everywhere i go whenever i land in beijing they are like okay. [laughter] it's a very 20th century kind of experience that i've had. but apart me wishes i was just working in a burger king in denmark, and having a decent life instead of -- >> that's a good segue because the prospect of you both may be and all novelist someday working in mcdonald's in denmark. what do you think the future of the novelist is? >> philip roth a few years ago called the novel quote a dying animal anthony elaborate. he said maybe a small group of people be reading it. maybe more people will read now and n

exxon mobil coming up, conoco phillips, viacom among the names to report quarterly results all before the bell and in global news this morning the bank of japan -- april and september of next year. policy makers decided not to extend an already massive stimulus program. thought they'd follow the chinese. also watch russian central bank. today it is expected to turn it's main lending rate following the sharp rise in the rouble. they find the median forecast is for a rate cut of 10 basis points. a decision is due. >> stocks making news this morning, consumer review website yelp's latest revenue missed the market and added fewer than expected local adverse tiegz accounts and also warning that current quarter sales will fall short of estimates. shares are unpressure the chinese search giant the earnings beat the street but revenue missed and it's guidance was light. shares for sales rising on takeover talk. they're said to be working with advisors to help it field bids after being approached by a potential buyer. we'll talk to a sales force analyst at the top of the next hour. >> i don't

product from dish says you can pay for the entire disney ebundle, but you don't have to take the viacomrent than the step people are waiting for. i want this particular disney channel. >> when you think about espn and we were talking about the statistics and you probably know them off the top of your head. what percentage of people who have cable at home watch espn given it the highest cost channel in the system? >> over a meaningful period of time it's about 28% of people i think. but here's a really interesting stat and i remember when there was -- >> only 28% of people. >> but wait. i remember when cox was having a dispute with disney. and over espn. i think it was back in 2008. they did some research and showed that only 25% of people surveyed said they would pay for espn. they later said about a year or so later, they said to me well be a careful consumer of research. because what we said was 25% of the people would take espn. turns out that 75% of households have one of those people in them. so, a much higher percent nl of households would actually take espn. >> but this really do

there's questions even right now about viacom look at mtv, vh1, the weather channel, a serious brand.towards it. people will be kind of lazy they like people to package it for them. that's not going to go away but, at the same time people love new stuff. so the more you can give them new stuff to sort of get them excited, and they know it's coming, hbo is an expert at that. i mean they continue to provide these series that layer on the movies they show and keep people paying in the 20 bucks. what we believe, what i believe is with my urban movie channel is doing in digital what i did with b.e.t. and analog cable and satellite because i think that there are 10 million, for example, there are 10 million african americans who take cable. african americans tend to be call two to one basic. they'll buy two pages. they're paying 20 bucks for hbo and showtime. that's a billion dollars. now, i'm offering those same consumers movies targeted to their interest before 95. now my argument is if you want to watch a movie and it appeals to you, you have choice between 20 bucks or 40 bucks and you h

he was most comfortable in the role that he called the nonviolent viacom in taking on the vfw and hadst success when ronald reagan was governor of california and richard nixon was the president. also fearless about taking on power. he was a charismatic leader in this remarkably untraditional way. freethinker king or a kennedy. cesar chavez is not a good public speaker, didn't like doing it. use all of that too is enormous in the image for a convince people to follow him. time he was working and starting to sound workers which people found impossible, he convinced people who were the poorest of the poor and not protected by any health safety and labor laws that by banding together and uniting and the only thing they had to get to the struggle was they could take on and when over the most powerful, then the most powerful industry in the state of california and forced to california to sign contracts with their poorest workers. a remarkable david versus goliath story that certainly was due to all the things he said in terms of intensity, but incredible intelligence and ability to lead. >>