Media giants in suspense over fate of 92-year-old boss

SAN FRANCISCO: At 92, Sumner Redstone is making no moves toward retiring. And that´s a worry for the two media giants he controls, Viacom and CBS.
Redstone is chairman of the board of both companies and he and his family own a majority of the shares in the entertainment conglomerate Viacom and CBS, the television giant split off in 2006.
But even as the two companies face challenges from the shift to the digital age, Redstone has not set up a succession plan.
Redstone has been intentionally vague about what happens when he ends his tenure. Observers have said the likely candidates could include his daughter Shari or Viacom chief executive Philippe Dauman.
"I will not discuss succession," he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2014. "You know why? I´m not gonna die. So why should I discuss succession?"
His planning is in sharp contrast with that of his counterpart Rupert Murdoch, 84, at 21st Century Fox and News Corp.
Murdoch has made his son Lachlan co-executive chairman at both groups and placed his other son James at CEO at News Corp.
A sense of urgency is growing over the future of Viacom and CBS, companies whose health may be nearly as precarious as that of the nonagenarian´s.
Shares in CBS have dropped 25 percent from highs and Viacom is down 40 percent. Both face threats from the shift of viewers to Internet-based on-demand services such as Netflix, Amazon and Hulu. Viacom, which owns the Paramount studios in Hollywood, is seen as vulnerable at its television operations that include the Nickelodeon children´s channel and music channel MTV.
Its latest quarterly earnings were disappointing.
Redstone, who is seen little these days outside his Beverly Hills home, has been notably absent from recent shareholder meetings and has skipped analyst calls for the two companies. He has appeared frail in recent years despite boasts in recent years about his workout routines and antioxidant supplements to keep himself healthy. Born to a Boston Jewish family in 1923 as Sumner Murray Rothstein, his father changed the name to Redstone in 1940.
After serving as an army codebreaker in World War II and working as a lawyer for several years, he joined his father´s company, which managed a chain of cinema houses.
He renamed the group National Amusements and turned it into one of the largest movie house operators in the country, popularizing the "mulitplex" concept.