Paramount Parks
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 | |
| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Theme parks |
| Founded | August 17, 1992 |
| Defunct | June 30, 2006 |
| Fate | Acquired by Cedar Fair |
| Successor | Cedar Fair |
| Headquarters | Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S. |
Number of locations | 7 (2006) |
Key people | Alexander Weber Jr. (CEO) |
| Revenue | $0.42 billion (2005) |
| $0.24 billion (2005) | |
| Owner | National Amusements |
| Parent |
|
| Footnotes / references Financials as of December 31, 2005[update].[1] | |
 | |
| 1886 | Westinghouse Electric Corporation is founded as Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company |
|---|---|
| 1912 | Famous Players Film Company is founded |
| 1913 | Lasky Feature Play Company is founded |
| 1914 | Paramount Pictures is founded |
| 1916 | Famous Players and Lasky merge as Famous Players–Lasky and acquire Paramount |
| 1927 | Famous Players–Lasky is renamed Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation; CBS is founded with investment from Columbia Records |
| 1929 | Paramount acquires 49% of CBS |
| 1930 | Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation is renamed Paramount Publix Corporation |
| 1932 | Paramount sells back its shares of CBS |
| 1934 | Gulf+Western is founded as the Michigan Bumper Corporation |
| 1935 | Paramount Publix Corporation is renamed Paramount Pictures |
| 1936 | National Amusements is founded as Northeast Theater Corporation |
| 1938 | CBS acquires Columbia Records |
| 1950 | Desilu is founded and CBS distributes its television programs |
| 1952 | CBS creates the CBS Television Film Sales division |
| 1958 | CBS Television Film Sales is renamed CBS Films |
| 1966 | Gulf+Western acquires Paramount |
| 1967 | Gulf+Western acquires Desilu and renames it Paramount Television (now CBS Studios) |
| 1968 | CBS Films is renamed CBS Enterprises |
| 1970 | CBS Enterprises is renamed Viacom |
| 1971 | Viacom is spun off from CBS |
| 1987 | National Amusements acquires Viacom |
| 1988 | CBS sells Columbia Records to Sony |
| 1989 | Gulf+Western is renamed Paramount Communications |
| 1994 | Viacom acquires Paramount Communications |
| 1995 | Paramount Television and United Television launch UPN; Westinghouse acquires CBS |
| 1997 | Westinghouse is renamed CBS Corporation |
| 2000 | Viacom acquires UPN and CBS Corporation |
| 2005 | Viacom splits into the second CBS Corporation and Viacom |
| 2006 | Skydance Media is founded as Skydance Productions; CBS Corporation shuts down UPN and replaces it with The CW |
| 2009 | Paramount and Skydance enter an agreement to co-produce and co-finance films |
| 2017 | CBS Corporation sells CBS Radio to Entercom (now Audacy) |
| 2019 | CBS Corporation and Viacom re-merge as ViacomCBS |
| 2022 | ViacomCBS is renamed Paramount Global |
| 2025 | Skydance acquires National Amusements and merges with Paramount Global as Paramount Skydance |
| 2026 | Paramount Skydance enters into a deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery |
Paramount Parks, Inc. was an American amusement park company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States, as a subsidiary of the mass media company CBS Corporation, majority owned by National Amusements. Formed in 1992 through the acquisition of Kings Entertainment Company by Paramount Communications, it was the fourth-largest amusement park operator in the United States, hosting approximately 12 million visitors annually.[2][3] Paramount Parks operated seven properties, including six amusement parks and one attraction.
The subsidiary became a part of Viacom following its acquisition of Paramount Communications in 1994. When Viacom split in 2005, Paramount Parks was placed under CBS Corporation. In 2006, CBS Corporation sold Paramount Parks to Cedar Fair for $1.24 billion, and the company was subsequently integrated into Cedar Fair, which itself merged into Six Flags in 2024.
Paramount Communications, previously known as Gulf+Western, in turn had acquired the parks from Nelson Schwab and his management group. Schwab and his KECO Entertainment acquired the group in a management-led LBO from the Taft Broadcasting Company, which had built Kings Island in Cincinnati using rides that were moved from the Coney Island amusement park in Cincinnati, Ohio Taft had just closed.
The parks were part of Viacom's Blockbuster Entertainment division until 2002 when they were moved back to Paramount Pictures. After another Viacom corporate shuffle in 2004 the parks became part of Viacom Recreation, a division of Nickelodeon and MTV Networks.
On December 31, 2005, as Viacom went through a corporate split (creating a new version of Viacom and renaming the original company CBS Corporation), Paramount Parks was assigned to CBS Corporation. CBS Corporation, in order to "toss overboard" any unnecessary company assets, sought to sell the parks during the 2006 season, planning to continue their operation until a buyer was found. Cedar Fair, owners of more well known Cedar Point and Knott's Berry Farm theme parks approached the company in 2006. Within the acquisition, there was a license for ten years of use of the Paramount prefix on the parks and Paramount properties at the former Paramount parks, and a four-year license for the use of Nickelodeon names and properties.[4] Cedar Fair opted to remove all mentions of Paramount and Paramount intellectual properties by mid-2007. The only references to a Viacom property remaining were the characters and titles used in Nickelodeon Universe (Kings Island) and Nickelodeon Central (Kings Dominion, Carowinds, Great America, and Canada's Wonderland), all of which were rethemed to Peanuts for the 2010 season, to match the children's areas of Cedar Fair's other parks.
Properties
The following properties refer to all properties that operated upon Paramount Parks' dissolution on June 30, 2006.
Amusement parks
- Paramount Canada's Wonderland — Vaughan, Ontario
- Paramount's Carowinds — Charlotte, North Carolina
- Paramount's Great America — Santa Clara, California
- Paramount's Kings Dominion — Doswell, Virginia
- Paramount's Kings Island — Mason, Ohio
- Bonfante Gardens — Gilroy, California
Water parks
- Boomerang Bay — Paramount's Great America
- Boomerang Bay — Paramount's Carowinds
- Boomerang Bay — Paramount's Kings Island
- Splash Works — Paramount Canada's Wonderland
- WaterWorks — Paramount's Kings Dominion
Other attractions
- Star Trek: The Experience (Las Vegas, Nevada) (closed)
Former properties
The following former properties refer to properties that were sold by Paramount Parks prior to its 2006 dissolution.
- Terra Mítica: A Paramount Park (Benidorm, Valencian Community, Spain)
- Raging Waters (San Dimas, California); bought by Ogden Corporation in 1999[5]
Acquisitions
The Paramount Parks were not built by Paramount, but rather were pre-existing and purchased as a whole, rebranded with the Paramount name. Effectively, it seems, Paramount was attempting to enter into the movie-based theme-park business popularized by amusement park and resort companies, such as Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment, Six Flags Theme Parks, Cedar Fair and Universal Destinations & Experiences.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Taft Broadcasting created a division called KECO Entertainment (King's Entertainment Company), which was formed in order to build theme parks nationwide.[citation needed] In 1972 and 1975, KECO built Kings Island and Kings Dominion respectively. In 1975, KECO led a forced purchase on the Carowinds Corporation, a bankrupt company, leaving them no choice but to sell Carowinds theme park in Charlotte, North Carolina. In 1981, KECO opened Canada's Wonderland in Vaughan, Ontario, Canada.
In 1984, hotel company Marriott, owner of two parks named Great America, was looking to divest itself of its parks. One of the parks was located in Silicon Valley in the exurbs of San Francisco and the other was located in the North Shore suburbs of Chicago. The California park was purchased by KECO, while the Illinois Park became part of the Six Flags chain.
In 1992, after 22 years of international operations, KECO Entertainment sold five of their parks to Paramount Communications (which was later purchased by Viacom). The remaining property, Australia's Wonderland, was not fully owned by Kings Entertainment and the minor stake they owned was sold to various Australian investor groups as the stake was not opted to be purchased by Paramount. Subsequently, in 1993, the "Paramount's" prefix was added to the parks, excluding Canada's Wonderland, which was renamed to "Paramount Canada's Wonderland", to avoid the use of a double possessive noun. Thus, the first five parks of the Paramount Parks were established: Paramount's Kings Island, Paramount's Kings Dominion, Paramount's Great America, Paramount's Carowinds, and Paramount Canada's Wonderland.
In 2000, Paramount Parks purchased the majority of shares in Spanish theme park Terra Mitica (Land of Myth), branding it Terra Mitica: A Paramount Park. In 2004, Viacom dropped its shares in the park, and the name was reverted without the Paramount suffix.
