Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone’s interview with Hollywood Reporter has some good gems about his view on digital media. Asked about whether he company has missed the boat on digital media, he said: “We don’t miss boats. Other people miss boats, and they may have missed the Viacom boat. The fact of the matter is, without copyright protection, there is no entertainment business. And so we instructed YouTube to remove 100,000 pieces of video from their site. Why? Because they were using it without paying for it….make a deal with us that is commensurate with the value of our product…People who want to use it are going to pay us, or good-bye.”
And then on the relative importance of it: “We are going to make hundreds of millions of dollars this year from the digital world. And that is not a secret. We are moving as rapidly as anyone. Do you know that Viacom is the world leader in mobile content? Do you know that in Germany were are the only company that has four mobile TV channels, as young as we are here? We are developing our own Web sites in America and all over the world. So anyone who doesn’t see that just doesn’t get it…I think people do a lot of talking without realizing that, at the present time, its economic importance to a company like ours is relatively modest.”