Viacom President Mel Karmazin Fired
The fallout from the Spike Lee – Spike Network (TNN) battle took an ugly turn today when Viacom president and chief operating officer Mel Karmazin was fired without warning by Chairman-CEO Sumner Redstone. Karmazin, who was the heir apparent to Redstone and the executive in charge of all Viacom entertainment holdings, was the target of series of threatening exchanges from a mysterious Spike Lee supporter.
Details of the firing are still top secret, but it is believed that notorious rap impresario and Death Row Records founder Marion “Suge” Knight sent an anonymous fax to Redstone warning of “big trouble for whitey” if Karmazin’s plan to use the Spike name was allowed to proceed. Insiders say that Redstone did not want to alienate a man with a prison record and someone who is alleged to have hung Vanilla Ice off a balcony in a shakedown attempt.
Knight’s fax allegedly said that Karmazin should “watch his back” and that black groups and organizations would never do who would never do business with a company (Viacom) that employed someone like him.
Officials from Viacom only comment was that Karmazin was relieved of duty due to misappropriation of company resources.
OK so this in not actually true, but doesn’t it sound familiar?
Update: Just to be clear – The story above is satire. None of it happened – except the part about Vanilla Ice 🙂
