Sumner Redstone: from a hotel fire to owning MTV

Transcript

In 1979, a cinema owner clung to the ledge of a burning hotel. Eight years later, he owned MTV. His name is Sumner Redstone. That night, he's asleep in a Boston hotel when an arsonist sets it on fire. He opens his door and the flames hit him. So he climbs out onto a third floor ledge and hangs there by his burning arm for 10 minutes, refusing to let go. Burns cover 45% of his body, and doctors say he'll never walk again. But Redstone isn't one to roll over, and soon he's playing tennis with a racket strapped to his burned arm. Back at work, he begins investing in studios whose films are selling out in his cinemas. He sees before Wall Street, so he's early, and makes over $20 million on Fox alone. Now he has money and wants Viacom, the owner of MTV and Nickelodeon. Viacom's own bosses are trying to buy it cheap and call him a two-bit theater operator from Boston. To outbid them, he puts up nearly everything his family owns, and borrows over $2 billion. If Viacom fails, he loses it all. Then at 63, he wins, but the boss is quit, leaving him $2 billion in debt with no one to run it. The banks tell him to sell MTV and Nickelodeon. He refuses, sure they're worth more than the debt, and he's right. In 12 years, Viacom's shares go up more than 9 fold, and by 2003 he's one of the richest men in America worth $8.9 billion.

Transcribed automatically from the video, so small errors are possible.