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 to ...
and based in
Norwood, Massachusetts. It is the controlling shareholder of
Paramount Global
Paramount Global ( doing business as Paramount) is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate owned and operated by National Amusements (79.4%) and headquartered at One Astor Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, New York. ...
.
History
The company was founded by
Michael Redstone 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
Sumner Murray Redstone ( Rothstein; May 27, 1923 – August 11, 2020) was an American billionaire businessman and media magnate. He was the founder and chairman of the second incarnation of Viacom which was dissolved in 2019 (a year before Redst ...
joined the company, it was renamed National Amusements.
In 1986, the company acquired
Viacom, a former
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
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 advertisin ...
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 primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
. 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
Gulf and Western Industries, Inc. (stylized as Gulf+Western) was an American conglomerate. Originally, the company focused on manufacturing and resource extraction. Beginning in 1966, and continuing throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the company ...
), parent of
Paramount Pictures, in 1993, and buying the
Blockbuster Video 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
Leslie Roy Moonves (; born October 6, 1949) is an American media executive who was the chairman and CEO of CBS Corporation from 2003 until his resignation in September 2018 following numerous allegations of sexual harassment, sexual assault and ...
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 from ...
, longtime heads of CBS and
MTV Networks
Paramount Media Networks (formerly known as Warner Cable Communications, Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment, MTV Networks, Viacom Media Networks, and ViacomCBS Domestic Media Networks) is an American mass media division of Paramount Global tha ...
respectively, and
the controversy of Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show, which resulted in MTV being banned from producing any more
Super Bowl 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 2004–2012, ...
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 especial ...
, decided to split the offices of
president
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
* President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...
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, and ...
(thus restoring its pre-merger name) and was headed by Moonves. It was intended to include Viacom's slower-growing business, namely
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
,
The CW
''The'' () is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite ...
(a merger of
UPN
The United Paramount Network (UPN) was an American broadcast television network that launched on January 16, 1995. It was originally owned by Chris-Craft Industries' United Television. Viacom (through its Paramount Television unit, which pr ...
and
The WB
The WB Television Network (for Warner Bros., or the "Frog Network", for its former mascot, Michigan J. Frog) was an American television network launched on terrestrial television, broadcast television on January 11, 1995, as a joint venture be ...
),
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.
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 Amuseme ...
, which it later sold to
amusement park operator
Cedar Fair
Cedar Fair, L.P., formally Cedar Fair Entertainment Company, is a publicly traded master limited partnership headquartered at its Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio. The company owns and operates eleven amusement parks, nine included- ...
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 a ...
.
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
Sumner Murray Redstone ( Rothstein; May 27, 1923 – August 11, 2020) was an American billionaire businessman and media magnate. He was the founder and chairman of the second incarnation of Viacom which was dissolved in 2019 (a year before Redst ...
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. Today these theatres are owned by
Cinemark,
AMC
AMC may refer to:
Film and television
* AMC Theatres, an American movie theater chain
* AMC Networks, an American entertainment company
** AMC (TV channel)
** AMC+, streaming service
** AMC Networks International, an entertainment company
*** ...
, 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
Paramount Global ( doing business as Paramount) is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate owned and operated by National Amusements (79.4%) and headquartered at One Astor Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, New York. ...
, constituting 10.2% of the overall equity of the company. The company may hold an unspecified stake in
Audacy, Inc.
Audacy, Inc. is an American broadcasting company based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1968 as Entercom Communications Corporation, it is the second largest radio company in the United States, owning 235 radio stations across 48 media ...
, as part of the
reverse Morris trust
A Reverse Morris Trust in United States law is a transaction that combines a divisive reorganization (spin-off) with an acquisitive reorganization ( statutory merger) to allow a tax-free transfer (in the guise of a merger) of a subsidiary. It may b ...
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
![10](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/10.5.07CityCenterLobbyByLuigiNovi.jpg)
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 European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
, 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 f ...
under its
Showcase Cinemas
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 i ...
,
Showcase Cinema de Lux
Showcase or vitrine may refer to:
*Cabinet (furniture)
* Display case
Music
* ''Showcase'' (Bill Anderson album), 1964
* ''Showcase'' (Patsy Cline album), 1961
* ''Showcase'' (Buddy Holly album), 1964
* ''Showcase'' (Philly Joe Jones album), 195 ...
, Multiplex Cinemas, and
Cinema de Lux. 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 tot ...
, 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 and
Landmark Cinemas
Landmark Cinema of Canada Inc. is a Canadian cinema chain. Based in Calgary, Alberta, Landmark operates 40 theatres with 325 screens, primarily in Ontario and western Canada. Its holdings include much of the former Empire Theatres chain which it a ...
. 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
Sumner Murray Redstone ( Rothstein; May 27, 1923 – August 11, 2020) was an American billionaire businessman and media magnate. He was the founder and chairman of the second incarnation of Viacom which was dissolved in 2019 (a year before Redst ...
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