dpb wrote:

Marissa Payton wrote:

"Paul M. Eldridge" wrote:

On Sun, 20 Apr 2008 16:15:51 -0500, dpb wrote:

Unlike virtually all my previous cohorts who are still working, I'm
_NOT_ going to India or China!!!
Congratulations! Good for you. And, err, sorry about that "W" thing.

[Although I'll quickly add that I've always considered Westinghouse a
truly great American company and it saddens me to think of how it was
driven into the ground.]

Actually, it wasn't driven into the ground. Westinghouse purchased CBS in
the mid nineties, then renamed itself CBS. The new CBS was later
purchased by Viacom, which still owns it today (and various other media
brands. The Group W Westinghouse radio stations were grouped with the
Infinity radio division, which CBS also owned. Numerous old Westinghouse
divisions were sold off, including the nuclear division, which continued
to keep the Westinghouse name. It was a subsidiary of a British company
for a number of years until Toshiba recently purchased it. Westinghouse
Nuclear is still based in Western Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, there just
isn't enough USA business to make it a viable independent concern.

Consumer products are being sold under the "Westinghouse" name again, but
these are typically third party manufacturers who license the name from
Viacom.

That's a pretty good synopsis of driving the W corporation into the
ground imo...

Perhaps but remember it was Westinghouse who purchased CBS, not visa versa. The
broadcasting business had become their most important Westinghouse business and
it probably didn't make sense to keep such a diverse and loosely connected
business together due to the difficulty of one corporation to focus on so many
dissimilar operations, of various profitabilities. Arch rival General Electric
was more successful at keeping a widely diversified conglomerate together, but
they managed to find economies of scale when possible (e.g. matching aircraft
engines with aircraft leasing) etc. I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually
divest broadcasting, including NBC. General Electric stock hasn't moved much in
years. (Well, until last week, when it took a tumble.)