Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone Declares ‘Ink’ Will Be Dead in Two Years

At the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills yesterday, Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone took time off from his own media company’s struggles to predict the demise of newspapers, or the ‘ink business’ as he called it. Redstone gave print two years to live.

Though we typically find this type of prognostication/grave-dancing annoying, Redstone took some time to bash Rupert Murdoch during his speech, which we find quite funny. Bloomberg quotes Redstone as ridiculing Murdoch’s $5.5 billion acquisition of the Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, in 2007.

“You have to be careful of any newspapers that Rupert Murdoch runs,” Redstone said. “He’ll put anything in them, except himself.”

The Bloomberg story goes on to describe Redstone’s bizarre antioxidant-laden quest for immortality. Newspaper deathwatch aside, we love this guy! Sounds like the next Howard Hughes in the making — but without all the agoraphobia.

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