(Reuters) - Viacom Inc (O:VIAB) said on Thursday it extended the employment agreement of Chief Operating Officer Thomas Dooley 10 months before his current contract was set to expire, settling uncertainty over whether the executive would stay with the multi-billion dollar media company.
Dooley's contract, which now runs until the end of 2018, is in line with those of Viacom Chief Executive and Chair Philippe Dauman and Chief Financial Office Wade Davis, whose contracts also run to the end of that year.
Details of the employment agreement will be disclosed after Viacom releases second-quarter earnings in April, said the New York-based media company, which owns MTV, Nickelodeon and Paramount.
The existing agreement with Dooley, who was named COO in 2010, was set to expire on Dec. 31 this year [nBw1D9pLla].
Dooley and Dauman have worked closely for over 30 years. They left Viacom together in 2000, when Viacom merged with CBS, to run a private equity firm.
Six years later, when Viacom spun off CBS, Dauman and Dooley returned to Viacom, with Dauman as CEO and Dooley as chief administrative officer. He was promoted to CFO in 2007 and to COO in 2010.
For fiscal 2015, Dooley's pay fell to $29.4 million from $35 million in the prior year.