Viacom (VIA) competes with other media and broadcasting companies like Time Warner (TWX), News Corp. (NWS), CBS (CBS) and Disney (DIS) in the media and entertainment business. Our price estimate for Viacom's stock stands at $58.36, which is a roughly 10% premium to market price.

Viacom makes money through cable and satellite operators, such as Comcast (CMCSA), Time Warner Cable (TWC), and DirecTV (DTV) that pay Viacom a monthly fee for each of their subscribers that receive Viacom-owned channels such as Nickelodeon, MTV, VH1 and TV Land. Viacom also sells advertising spots on its channels to advertisers like Coca-Cola (KO), Ford (F) and Procter & Gamble (PG). These revenues are partially a function of the total number of U.S. pay-TV households. The modifiable chart below showcases how changes to this metric affect Viacom's stock value.

Viacom (NYSE: VIA), a media business that competes with Disney (NYSE: DIS), Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), General Electric's (NYSE: GE) NBC Universal, and Sony (NYSE: SNE), doesn't have a lot to brag about in its third quarter. Revenue went up only 4%. Adjusted earnings fell 15% to $0.55, beating expecations by a penny. But I doubt that's much comfort in this particular case, considering that operating income at the company's media networks division dipped 4%, and an operating loss was reported for the studio division due to difficult comparisons (i.e., Transformers helped the year-ago quarter).

Like clockwork, Executive Chairman Sumner Redstone praised Viacom's content and fully supported CEO Philippe Dauman. Maybe Redstone should take a strong look at Viacom and sit the CEO down and have a serious discussion with him about the realities of entertainment programming. Right now, MTV is suffering from ratings challenges. Dauman has to step up his game in this regard.

I mean, come on, MTV is a powerful brand with the youth, and he needs to lean on the folks running it to work harder and become more innovative and creative. I will say that I liked that the earnings release mentioned a desire to engage better cost controls at its studio division. Paramount definitely needs to lower overhead expenses. Hollywood likes to spend money; shareholders most certainly do not. So I think Redstone should aggressively make this clear to Dauman.

This post is written as part of AOL Money & Finance's Best & Worst 2006. If you feel Oprah Winfrey makes too much money, cast your vote.

Multiple Emmy Award-winning host of The Oprah Winfrey Show, the highest-rated talk show in television history, Oprah Winfrey is also an Academy Award-nominated actress and a magazine publisher. Winfrey co-founded the women's cable television network, Oxygen, and is also the president of Harpo Productions.

Forbes recently estimated Winfrey's wealth at $1.5 billion, and has referred to her as the world's only black billionaire. She currently lives on a 42-acre ocean and mountain view estate in Montecito, California, and also has an apartment in Chicago, an estate on Fisher Island off the coast of Miami, a ski house in Telluride, Colorado, and property on Maui, Hawaii. Winfrey was called "arguably the world's most powerful woman" by CNN, and in 2003 she edged out both Superman and Elvis Presley to be named the greatest pop-culture icon of all time by VH1.