National Amusements Should Again Push for CBS/Viacom, BTIG Analyst Says

National Amusements, controlling shareholder of CBS and Viacom, should force a merger of the two, BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield wrote Friday. NA seemingly has no intentions of selling either, and the scale and size of each is such that it's unlikely acquisitions could diversify them away from their legacy businesses and the challenges in the TV advertising and cable network subscription business, he said: Failed individual CBS and Viacom efforts at mergers and acquisitions like CBS-Starz and Viacom-Scripps (see 1707310062) might have gone better if CBS-Viacom were combined. BTIG said a CBS-Viacom brings cost savings from a unified TV and film studio, removes inefficiencies, better positions the combined company for direct-to-consumer business with Viacom producing not-for-linear TV content for CBS All Access, cuts the risk of carriage disputes, helps in the pursuit of other M&A in and outside of the legacy media sector, and would give more cash flow and scale to help pursue sports rights. NA -- which backed and then called off CBS-Viacom talks last year (see 1612120060) -- didn't comment.