History
All traces of the Westinghouse name go back to the original company's roots starting in 1886 when George Westinghouse founded that company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
After the Original Westinghouse acquired CBS Inc. in 1995 from Laurence Tisch, it was about ready to transform itself from an industrial company into a media giant. Starting in 1996, it did just that, selling off many of its non-media assets that came with them.
In 1997, Westinghouse acquired Infinity Broadcasting and was reorganized as the first CBS Corporation, taking on the name of the broadcasting network. This, however, ended the reign of the name that had been associated with America for 111 years.
In 1998, CBS Corporation established a brand licensing subsidiary under the Westinghouse Electric Corporation name; the original Westinghouse name had recognition in the consumer marketplace and so had a value apart from any actual manufacturing company under that name.
In 1999, CBS Corporation sold all of its nuclear businesses to BNFL. Soon after, BNFL gained license rights on the Westinghouse trademarks and they used those to reorganize their acquired assets as Westinghouse Electric Company LLC. That company was later sold to the Toshiba Group in 2007.
In 2000, CBS Corporation was absorbed into Viacom, thus shutting down all what's left of the "Original Westinghouse" for good. The Westinghouse licensing division was included in the merger, and Viacom had now gotten control of the Westinghouse trademarks. However, in 2005, Viacom changed its name to CBS Corporation, and spun-off a new company under the Viacom name. The current CBS Corporation continues to operate the Westinghouse Licensing Corporation today.
Read more about this topic: Westinghouse Licensing Corporation
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“While the Republic has already acquired a history world-wide, America is still unsettled and unexplored. Like the English in New Holland, we live only on the shores of a continent even yet, and hardly know where the rivers come from which float our navy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Books of natural history aim commonly to be hasty schedules, or inventories of God’s property, by some clerk. They do not in the least teach the divine view of nature, but the popular view, or rather the popular method of studying nature, and make haste to conduct the persevering pupil only into that dilemma where the professors always dwell.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)