Viacom Split Fits Street's Wish List

Take a bow, Sumner Redstone. I am awarding you the Ponce de Leon Fountain of Youth award. Because your separation of Viacom (VIA.B - commentary - Cramer's Take) into a value and a growth entity is brilliant, just brilliant, and exactly what Wall Street wanted.

You join some pretty prestigious company, you feisty 82-year-old, notably the 88-year-old Kirk Kerkorian, who figured out we wanted health care costs reduced at General Motors (GM - commentary - Cramer's Take). His sage-like maneuver just produced 8 points of gain in that old dog GM. Who knows what good you can do with Viacom?

I am sure that at first glance, unless you have worked on the buy side, at a mutual fund or at a hedge fund, you have no idea what's so great about breaking Viacom into two entities, one for radio and television and the other for cable and motion pictures.

That's because you don't know the argot, the lingo, the lay of the land. So let me explain.

On the buy side, there are three giant constituencies. First, there's the hedge fund constituency, which lives for UPOD: underpromise and overdeliver. You have savaged the hedge fund community with your repeated overpromising. They never want to hear the name Viacom again. You have taken care of that, you're getting rid of it.

Then there's the value mutual funds. These guys are fuddy-duddies. They are never going to understand the value of MTV, or any of the ancillary MTV stations that my kids would pay extra for. They don't understand the annuity and growth of Nickelodeon. They think it's all hype. They like dividends, big profits; that's something you aren't going to give the value guys. They hated that portion of Viacom.

Then there's the growth cohort of the mutual funds. These guys loved Nick and MTV and the movie biz, but can't stand radio and don't have much love for television, either. They believe these are no-growth businesses.

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James J. Cramer is a director and co-founder of TheStreet.com. He contributes daily market commentary for TheStreet.com's sites and serves as an adviser to the company's CEO. Outside contributing columnists for TheStreet.com and RealMoney.com, including Cramer, may, from time to time, write about stocks in which they have a position. In such cases, appropriate disclosure is made. To see his personal portfolio and find out what trades Cramer will make before he makes them, sign up for Action Alerts PLUS by clicking here. While he cannot provide personalized investment advice or recommendations, he invites you to send comments on his column by clicking here. Listen to Cramer's RealMoney Radio show on your computer; just click here. Watch Cramer on "Mad Money" at 6 p.m. ET weeknights on CNBC. Click here to order Cramer's latest book, "Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World," click here to get his second book, "You Got Screwed!" and click here to order Cramer's autobiography, "Confessions of a Street Addict."