Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone says he regarded the failure of former Viacom CEO Tom Freston to acquire MySpace.com as "humiliating." In an interview with Charlie Rose on PBS Wednesday night, Redstone said before rival Rupert Murdoch showed an interest in the Internet site, "MySpace was sitting there for the taking for $500 million." He said he now figures it's worth $1.5 billion. [That figure was substantiated in an article appearing today (Friday) in Business Week Online, which quotes mergers-and-acquisitions expert Tom Aulli of Soleil-Media Metrix as saying, "This is probably one of the best acquisitions ever."] Losing the MySpace deal to News Corp, Redstone indicated, lead to his decision to fire Freston. He said, however, that he would not try to acquire MySpace rival Facebook. "We looked at it. The price is too high," he said.




06/10/2006