Viacom's boardroom bloodletting ends in victory for Shari Redstone after she channels her inner JR Ewing

Viacom was spun out of CBS, the network that once screened Dallas. The battle for control of the company rivals anything the soap's scriptwriters came up with

Sumner Redstone: The Viacom patriach's daughter has won control of the business (Reuters)

Dallas was once the hottest show on America’s CBS network.

The drama that has played out in the boardroom of Viacom, the media company spun out of CBS that owns MTV, Nickelodeon, Britain’s Channel Five and Paramount, rivals anything dreamed up by the iconic soap’s scriptwriters.

Viacom’s controlling shareholder, 93-year-old Sumner Redstone has been in poor health of late, but in his younger days he would have made a good proxy for Jock Ewing, the tough as nails patriarch of the fractious Ewing clan whose lives, loves and low politics were depicted in Dallas.

Mr Redstone was for many years a harsh critic of his daughter Shari Redstone. Perhaps we should cast her as the essentially amiable Bobby Ewing, all too often on the receiving end of the nefarious plots of his dastardly brother JR, one of TV’s all time best baddies.

Poor Bobby. Sorry, Shari. Mr Redstone once sent a letter to Forbes magazine dismissing his daughter’s contributions to the company. For a while relations between them were so strained they communicated only by fax machine.

Now, it seems, their estrangement is over, perhaps because Shari has been showing some of the ruthlessness JR was famous for in a vicious battle for control of the family company.

Viacom’s chief executive and Sumner Redstone protege Philippe Dauman, along with his boardroom allies, had raised questions over Mr Redstone's health, and accused Shari of manipulating her ailing father. They filed a lawsuit after the controlling shareholder National Amusements Inc, in turn controlled by the Redstones, instituted a boardroom shake up.

A counter suit duly appeared and the two sides' respective lawyers hunkered down for a fee bonanza. There were even suggestions that the business’s patriarch could end up having to submit to a test of his mental competence.

Now the lawsuits have settled. Mr Dauman will resign with Viacom’s chief operating officer Tom Dooley taking his place until September 30. A newly expanded Viacom board, with five new members selected by National Amusements, will then make “a decision on the succession plans”.

All the parties concerned were quoted in the press release announcing the deal with the exception of Mr Redstone, who will retain his title of chairman emeritus. However, the outcome can only be interpreted as a decisive victory for his daughter.

She is Bobby Ewing no longer, if she ever was. In an example of life imitating art, this drama has played out to her script and whatever title she ends up with (she is currently the non executive vice chairman) it’s now her show.

If Viacom proves to be half as successful as Dallas once was under her tenure it isn’t only Ms Redstone who will be celebrating. Somewhere out there in TV land JR and Jock will be smiling. As will her father. She’s proved herself to be a chip off the old block.