One of television's oldest and most powerful names is about to get a little less powerful.
Media mogul
Sumner Redstone is selling nearly $1 billion shares of CBS and Viacom to pay off a big portion of his debt to preserve his media empire. He owes nearly $1.46 billion and has to pay at least $500,000 of it by the end of October. Maybe he's got some used DVDs he can sell at his local Gamestop.
Of course, he'll still maintaining "controlling interest" in both companies but it won't feel the same. Now, no one will have enough power to make media bigheads like Stephen Colbert (literally) dance.
CBS Executive Chairman, Sumner Redstone, was asked on Wednesday for his thoughts on the four MMA events scheduled to air on the network as a result of their partnership with Elite Xtreme Combat. Now, if Sumner just said he's not a fan, or he didn't think it was right for the network, I could probably just agree to disagree with him. My issue with his comments, as reported by Reuters, come from the reference that airing the sport on free, broadcast TV, is not socially responsible.
Seriously? Does he watch the network? We all know what would be plugging those open holes in the lineup if it wasn't for the appearance of Kimbo Slice and Gina Carano (American Gladiators, pictured). Yes, another heaping helping of CSI:X reruns, possibly featuring psychopaths that poison/stab/shoot/strangle/etc their victims. If your argument is that airing fictional murderers committing heinous, bloody, crimes is somehow taking the moral high ground when compared to MMA, I'm really not buying it. For those of you interested in some Saturday night MMA, I've attached the press release, with the fight card, after the jump.