Thursday, May 25, 2006

Amusement park reshuffling The US amusement park industry saw a significant move this week as Cedar Fair L.P. stated it would buy the Paramount Parks unit of CBS. The deal is for $1.24 billion and involves five Paramount Parks, one in Canada and four in the US. Cedar Fair is already a major player with seven amusement parks and five water parks spread across the US. Their holdings include Southern California’s Knotts Berry Farm, Pennsylvania’s Dorney Park, and Cedar Point in Ohio. This move will make it the #3 player in industry in the US, after Disney and Six Flags. The Paramount Park chain includes such well-known parks as King’s Dominion in Virginia, King’s Island in Ohio, and Great America in California (other Great America branches are part of Six Flags). The company has now been handed around repeatedly. Originally assembled by conglomerate Gulf + Western, it was made an adjunct to Paramount Film Studios, it was sold to Viacom when that company acquired Paramount in 1994. The parks were identified with Viacom’s Nickelodeon kids’ TV franchise. When Viacom last year split in two, the parks ended up with the new CBS company. CBS has clearly decided that there is no synergy between the broadcast business and amusement parks. CBS has also indicated it will be selling radio stations in smaller markets. The deal is a gain for Cedar Fair, which gets much closer in size to archrival Six Flags. For CBS, it is a chance to shake off a distraction while it concentrates on the broadcast properties. 8:09:49 PM

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