Bloomberg Talks
Tom Freston, Principal of Firefly3 and former CEO of Viacom, on his book, “Unplugged: Adventures from MTV to Timbuktu”
06 Feb 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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One would expect a memoir from the co-founder of MTV to include quite a bit of sex drugs and rock and roll. Tom Freston's new book gives us that and quite a bit more.
From hitchhiking through a pre-Taliban Afghanistan, using a drug smuggler to get clothes from Asia to New York City, tariff-free, to almost getting kidnapped in the Sahara Desert with Jimmy Buffett, to getting unceremoniously canned by Sumner Redstone, Tom Freston, Carol, he has seen a lot.
Yeah, he certainly has. He's co-founder of MTV, a co-founder and the former CEO of Viacom. He's also principal of the consulting and investment firm Firefly 3 and the author of a new book, which we want to talk to him about. It is entitled Unplugged Adventures from MTV to Timbuktu. It came out back in November. He joins us from California. Tom, so great to have you here with us. How are you?
I'm good, Carol. Hello to you. And hi, Tim. Nice to be here.
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Chapter 2: What insights does Tom Freston share about the evolution of the media landscape?
And now we're moving into the AI revolution. So the media industry is in a constant state of flux, always sort of, you know, influenced greatly by technology. And, you know, it's hard to say where it's going to go, but we're going to see more consolidation amongst the legacy media companies, that's for sure. There's a few deals in place right now, as you know.
Yeah.
Well, speaking of those deals, the fate of Warner Brothers Discovery. David Zaslav mentioned in your book a few times. Do you have a view on whether that company should go to Netflix or Paramount Skydance?
Yeah I think it's a better fit and you know you hate to see another movie studio sort of disappear in a form of consolidation and Warner Brothers is like the king of you know the most treasured studio of all but of the two alternatives I think the Netflix one is more interesting and bodes better for people in the business and bodes better for consumers.
In the case of Paramount you really have two legacy companies Merging together, they talk about $9 billion worth of cost savings, and that means more people on the street. It's not that interesting of a combination as taking someone like Netflix, which is sort of a quasi-digital company, and marrying that with Warner Brothers seems to be a better fit, if you were to ask me, which you just did.
Yeah.
What about, you know, a lot of your book goes into your relationship with Sumner Redstone. We're going to get to some of that in a minute. What do you think he would think about today with what's going on at Paramount Skydance? You describe him as being just so obsessed with the company stock price and always trying to buy more shares.
You describe him as always being on the phone with his stockbroker at the time because that's how it worked at the time. What do you think he would think of what's happening at Paramount Skydance?
Well, I think he'd be sad. He'd be sad to see what became of the empire that he was a major force in creating and how the values deteriorated and how Viacom sort of missed the moment, if you will. They missed the moment in the digital transition. You just compare it to Disney, which spent, say, they doubled down on their content creative abilities.
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Chapter 3: How did Tom Freston navigate his experiences with Sumner Redstone?
And I'm Tim Stanevex. Subscribe today wherever you get your podcasts.