NEW YORK (AP) -- At the annual meeting Thursday of Viacom Inc., the media conglomerate that owns MTV and CBS, the questions came from many of the usual sources -- disgruntled union members, an institutional investor and longtime shareholders and employees. And then Joshua Block, a 12-year-old from Weston, Conn. dressed in a sensible navy blazer and a necktie with images of little $100 bills on it, stepped up.þþBarely tall enough to reach the microphone, Block asked Viacom's chairman Sumner Redstone a question.þþLast year, Block said, Redstone had claimed everything was OK between him and his No. 2 executive Mel Karmazin, but a few months later Karmazin left the company.þþSpeaking calmly through wire braces, Block said: ''is there anything else'' shareholders should know about?þþAfter a wave of laughter died down from the crowd, Redstone smiled and said things were ''only OK'' last year between him and Karmazin, and that now Viacom's affairs were much better.þþBlock told reporters later that he had skipped his afternoon classes that day because he thought the annual shareholder meeting of Viacom, which he also attended last year, would be ''more interesting than school.''þþHis mother Arleen, a former school psychologist, seemed to agree, having brought her 7th grade son to midtown Manhattan for the meeting. Afterward, Block said he was unsatisfied with Redstone's answer. ''I'm wondering what else is happening,'' he said.þþBlock, who does not have other shareholdings apart from his college saving funds, says he received two shares of Viacom's Class A voting stock -- equal to $70.68 at Thursday's closing price -- about three years ago from his grandparents, who wanted to give him a present for graduating from elementary school.þþOther speakers at the meeting included several members of a union representing writers at CBS television and radio news, who are in the middle of negotiating a new contract.þþGail Lee, a 17-year veteran of CBS news, protested CBS' proposal, which she said amounted to a 21 percent pay cut but would also require her to work an additional five hours per week. CBS Chairman Les Moonves, who is also a co-president of Viacom, said he hoped an amicable agreement could be reached.þþOutside the meeting, protesters from the Writers Guild of America chanted slogans and handed out flyers shaped like a big check for $52 million made out to Moonves -- the amount of his compensation last year.þþThe large pay packages last year for Redstone, Moonves and Tom Freston, the other co-president of Viacom, prompted concerns from shareholder activists who said the executives were being richly rewarded even though the company's stock slumped 18 percent in 2004.þþThe three men were paid a combined total of $160 million -- $56 million for Redstone, who is also the company's chief executive and controlling shareholder -- and $52 million each for Moonves and Freston.þþRedstone repeatedly told shareholders at the meeting that he ''shared your frustration'' that the company's share price was stagnant despite higher revenues and operating income at the company.þþIn an effort to lift the company's stock, Viacom announced in March that it was seriously considering a plan to split up into two companies in order to allow investors to value its businesses separately. Viacom has already split off its Blockbuster video rental business, whose slumping performance had become a concern on Wall Street.þþAt the meeting, Redstone said the company was still studying the question of a potential splitup and hoped to reach a decision by the end of June, with the separation expected to occur in the early part of next year.þþ
Source: NY Times
