Why viacom will never be great again

Viacom seems to have it all wrong. Even leading ad-based TV streaming service Hulu knows that it has to keep its advertisements in check.

Folks aren't going to deal with 12 to 16 minutes of commercials an hour, as one ad buyer tells The Wall Street Journal that Viacom is selling these days. Things have only gotten worse. Viacom is just stuffing in the ads to try to keep its revenue flowing. Oh, and things can get worse. The Uncertain Future of Cable Pay-television subscribers are ripping their fat cable and satellite television bills to shreds.

Some will argue that it's a seasonal dip, yet these net defections didn't materialize until two years ago. It won't be long before video providers will need to give consumers what they want. The moment that power is put in the hands of the people wielding the remote controls -- and it's inevitable in any consumer-facing business -- Viacom's going to realize how many people really don't feel they need VH1, Spike, or CMT. The future will be challenging to all of the cable networks, but Viacom faces the grim proposition of settling for shrinking slices in a shrinking pie.

It doesn't add up. It doesn't ad up, either. Longtime Motley Fool contributor Rick Munarriz does not own shares in any of the stocks in this article, except for Netflix. The Motley Fool owns shares of Netflix. VIAC stock fares better after Case 2 , with an average return of Try the Trefis machine learning engine above to see for yourself how ViacomCBS stock is likely to behave after any specific gain or loss over a period. If you buy and hold ViacomCBS stock, the expectation is over time the near-term fluctuations will cancel out, and the long-term positive trend will favor you - at least if the company is otherwise strong.

The average return after a rise is generally lower than after a fall as detailed in the previous question. Interestingly, though, if a stock has gained over the last few days, you would do better to avoid short-term bets for most stocks - although VIAC stock appears to be an exception to this general observation. We believe that the stock has been beaten down enough. Check out our theme on Value Tech Stocks.

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