Making sense of mergers

The article "The New Media Giants" deals with mergers of companies. The two that are focused the most are CBS and Viacom. From personal experience, I can say that these mergers seriously effected the quality of some of Viacom's channels. The article goes on and on about the business behind all of the mergers, but the most important thing though is the entertainment value they are supposed to provide.


Nickelodeon is a clear example of a channel seriously effected by the merge in 1999. They used to have great shows, that kids around 8-15 or so could like, and the quality of the cartoons and shows were much better. I remember though at the turn of the millennium, the shows went downhill, and I didn't understand why, but after reading this article I can see the probable cause. Today, Nickelodeon is a festering mess of horrible shows, and I feel bad for the kids that are subject to awful broadcasting.

The good old days of Rugrats.


What on earth happened?



MTV, another channel owned by Viacom, obviously is nowhere near the channel that it was 10 years ago, and even then it started to branch from its musical routes. During late 1990s though they started to branch into reality shows such as The Real World and Stunt show "Jackass." The Jersey Shore is a relatively new show and it clearly goes against all intentions of the purpose of the channel itself- which was to originally be a channel associated with music.


A lot of channels both associated with CBS/Viacom and others that are not, are guilty of changing too much of a channel around. I am sure this happens because of monetary and business reasons, where paychecks come first and quality television comes second.