National Amusements, Inc. is an American privately owned
movie theater operator and mass media
holding company
A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own shares of other companies ...
incorporated in
Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean t ...
and based in
Norwood, Massachusetts. It is the controlling shareholder of
Paramount Global.
History
The company was founded by
Michael Redstone
Michael "Mickey" Redstone (born Max Rothstein; April 11, 1902 – April 4, 1987) was an American entrepreneur and founder of the Northeast Theater Corporation'','' now National Amusements, Inc.
Biography
Redstone was born on April 11, 1902 in Bo ...
in 1936 in the
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
suburb of
Dedham as Northeast Theater Corporation, operating a chain of
movie theaters in the region. In 1959, when the founder's son
Sumner Redstone joined the company, it was renamed National Amusements.
In 1986, the company acquired
Viacom, a former
CBS subsidiary syndicating
television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...
programs to stations around the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
. NA retained the Viacom name and made a string of large acquisitions in the early 1990s, announcing plans to merge with Paramount Communications (formerly
Gulf+Western), parent of
Paramount Pictures, in 1993, and buying the
Blockbuster Video
Blockbuster or Block Buster may refer to:
*Blockbuster (entertainment) a term coined for an extremely successful movie, from which most other uses are derived.
Corporations
* Blockbuster (retailer), a defunct video and game rental chain
** Bloc ...
chain in 1994. The acquisition of Paramount Communications in July 1994 made Viacom one of the world's largest entertainment companies.
In March 2005, the company announced plans of looking into splitting Viacom into two publicly traded companies under the continuing ownership of National Amusements because of a stagnating stock price. The internal rivalry between
Les Moonves and
Tom Freston
Thomas E. Freston (born November 22, 1945) is an American media proprietor, businessman, and financier.
Early life and education
Freston grew up in Rowayton, Connecticut. He received a Bachelor of Arts from Saint Michael's College and an MBA fro ...
, longtime heads of CBS and
MTV Networks respectively, and
the controversy of Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show, which resulted in MTV being banned from producing any more
Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the annual final playoff game of the National Football League (NFL) to determine the league champion. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game. Since 2022, the gam ...
halftime shows, were also seen as factors. After the departure of
Mel Karmazin
Melvin Alan "Mel" Karmazin (born August 24, 1943) is an American executive. He was the president of Infinity Broadcasting (formally known as CBS Radio now Entercom) and eventually became the president and CEO of CBS television . From 2004–201 ...
in 2004, Redstone, who served as
chairman and
chief executive officer
A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especiall ...
, decided to split the offices of
president and
chief operating officer
A chief operating officer or chief operations officer, also called a COO, is one of the highest-ranking executive positions in an organization, composing part of the " C-suite". The COO is usually the second-in-command at the firm, especially if ...
between Moonves and Freston. Redstone was set to retire in the near future, and a split would be a creative solution to the matter of replacing him.
The split was approved by Viacom's board on June 14, 2005, and took effect on January 1, 2006, and effectively reversed the Viacom/CBS merger of 1999. The existing Viacom was renamed
CBS Corporation
The second incarnation of CBS Corporation (the first being a short-lived rename of the Westinghouse Electric Corporation) was an American multinational media conglomerate with interests primarily in commercial broadcasting, publishing, an ...
(thus restoring its pre-merger name) and was headed by Moonves. It was intended to include Viacom's slower-growing business, namely
CBS,
The CW
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...
(a merger of
UPN and
The WB),
CBS Radio (since sold to Entercom
enamed_Audacy,_Inc._in_2021.html" ;"title="Audacy,_Inc..html" ;"title="enamed Audacy, Inc.">enamed Audacy, Inc. in 2021">Audacy,_Inc..html" ;"title="enamed Audacy, Inc.">enamed Audacy, Inc. in 2021as of November 17, 2017), Simon & Schuster (to be sold to Penguin Random House), CBS Outdoor (formerly Viacom Outdoor, since spun-off as Outfront Media in 2014), Showtime Networks, CBS Studios, CBS Television Studios, CBS Media Ventures, CBS Television Distribution and
CBS Studios International
Paramount Global Distribution Group or Paramount Global Content Distribution is the international television distribution arm of American media conglomerate, Paramount Global, originally established in 1962 as the international distribution divis ...
.
In addition, CBS Corporation was given
Paramount Parks
Paramount Parks was the operator of Paramount's Kings Island, Paramount's Kings Dominion, Paramount's Great America, Paramount's Carowinds, and Paramount Canada's Wonderland, which annually attracted about 13 million patrons. National Amusemen ...
, which it later sold to
amusement park operator
Cedar Fair on June 30, 2006, and the CBS College Sports Network, now known as the
CBS Sports Network
CBS Sports Network (a.k.a. CBSSN) is an American pay television network owned by the CBS Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global. When it launched in 2002 as the National College Sports Network (later College Sports Television also known ...
.
Additionally, a spun-off company was created called
Viacom, which was headed by Freston. It comprised MTV Networks,
BET Networks, Paramount Pictures, and Paramount Pictures' home entertainment operations. These businesses were categorized as the high-growth businesses.
At the end of 2008, due to financial troubles, owners
Sumner Redstone and
Shari Redstone
Shari Ellin Redstone (born April 14, 1954) is an American media executive with a background in numerous aspects of the entertainment industry and related ventures. She currently serves as the non-executive chairwoman of Paramount Global (formerly ...
sold $400 million of nonvoting shares in National Amusements. In October 2009, the company sold almost $1 billion of its interest in the stock of CBS and Viacom and sold 35 theaters to
Rave Motion Pictures
Rave Cinemas, formerly known as "Rave Motion Pictures", is a movie theater brand founded in 1999 and owned by Cinemark Theatres. It previously was headed by Thomas W. Stephenson, Jr., former CEO of Hollywood Theaters, and Rolando B. Rodriguez, fo ...
. Today these theatres are owned by
Cinemark
Cinemark Holdings, Inc. (stylized as CineMark from 1998 to 2022 and CINEMARK since 2022) is an American movie theater chain that started operations in 1984 and since then it has operated theaters with hundreds of locations throughout the America ...
,
AMC, Alamo, or have closed. National Amusements now almost exclusively operates theaters in the
Northeastern United States (with the exception of one location in Ohio). The following year, National Amusements planned to sell $390 million of notes to refinance a large part of the company's bank owed debt.
As of December 2019, National Amusements, directly and through subsidiaries, holds approximately 79.4% of the Class A (voting) common stock of
Paramount Global, constituting 10.2% of the overall equity of the company. The company may hold an unspecified stake in
Audacy, Inc., as part of the
reverse Morris trust that spun
CBS's radio assets off to that company; CBS Corporation shareholders overall held a 72% stake in the then-named Entercom as of the spin-off.
Current operations
The company operates more than 1,500 movie screens across the
Northeastern United States, the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...
, and
Latin America
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived ...
under its
Showcase Cinemas,
Showcase Cinema de Lux, Multiplex Cinemas, and
Cinema de Lux
Showcase Cinemas is a movie theater chain owned and operated by National Amusements. It operates in a total of four countries: the United States (flagship), Brazil, the United Kingdom and Argentina.
Locations
Showcase operates more than 950 ...
. In
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...
, National Amusements also owned
Famous Players
Famous Players Limited Partnership, DBA Famous Players, is a Canadian-based subsidiary of Cineplex Entertainment. As an independent company, it existed as a film exhibitor and cable television service provider. Famous Players operated numerous m ...
theatres through Viacom which today are now owned by
Cineplex Entertainment
Cineplex Inc. (formerly Cineplex Galaxy) is a Canadian movie theatre and family entertainment centre chain headquartered in Toronto.
The company was formed in 2003 via the acquisition of Loews Cineplex's Canadian operations (which included t ...
and
Landmark Cinemas. In 2004, National Amusements acquired the Brazilian operations to cinema chain UCI, and revamping it to be more in line with Showcase. They also share some of the corporate identities of Showcase and have XPlus & De Lux rooms in selected cinemas, as well as fully reclining seats.
In 2019, it was announced that the multinational media conglomerates controlled by National Amusements (Viacom and CBS Corporation), would re-merge to form a new company named ViacomCBS. Viacom and CBS announced that the merger would close on December 4; following the official close, the company began trading on
NASDAQ the following day. In 2022, the company was renamed Paramount Global.
Recent Chairman and CEO
Sumner Redstone died on August 11, 2020.
References
External links
*
Showcase Cinemas website
{{Dedham
American companies established in 1936
Movie theatre chains in the United States
Companies based in Dedham, Massachusetts
Companies based in Massachusetts
Entertainment companies established in 1936
Privately held companies based in Massachusetts
1936 establishments in Massachusetts
Entertainment companies of the United States
Paramount Global