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Investor concerns about the channel’s 31% drop in primetime ratings this season vs last year have contributed to the 13% decline in Viacom‘s stock price since early October. But CEO Philippe Dauman assured analysts this morning that MTV is “not broken.” Indeed he says the channel for teens and young adults is “highly successful” and he has “no concerns about MTV’s vitality going forward.” As evidence he noted that Catfish: The TV Show — a reality program that helps people to connect with their online romances — on Monday became ”the highest-rated launch in MTV history.” He adds that the network has a “great development platform.” Dauman also talked up the decision this week to hire former WB and Lifetime programming chief Susanne Daniels to take charge of MTV’s programming, replacing David Janollari. “We’ve had our eye on her for a long time,” Dauman says, adding that she will help to “turbocharge” development of both reality and scripted shows for MTV. Viacom shares are up 3.4% in early trading after it reported fiscal Q4 earnings that were better than many feared, and execs reassured investors that it will repurchase at least $2.5B of its stock in the current fiscal year.
Related: Viacom Fiscal Q4 Revenues Fall On Weak Ad Sales And Drop In Filmed Entertainment
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Please. MTV has been “broken” since 1997 when I last paid attention to it.
Dauman saying MTV isn’t broken is like my mom telling me Im special. Not exactly impartial.
They shouldn’t have passed on Breaking Amish. Could have saved the network and lots of our jobs.
it’s over!
31% decline. & Viacom Chief says its not broken. A perfect example of the 1% who run these companies, support guys like Romney, crap on employees and the bubble they live in. Viacom Dude ask any teen about MTV and they will tell you it sucks…
That’s a great point; Dauman and all of his French compatriots were HUGE Romney supporters! The vast majority of showbiz execs are actually extremely liberal; people like Jeff Zucker, David Geffen, Ted Turner (just ones that popped into my head) are very prominent donors to democrat candidates and big supporters I’m sure of OWS.
Of course this makes them look silly and hypocritical, being that they are all ultra-elite members of the 1% (and frequently do things like move productions to states or countries that give huge tax breaks, depriving California of thousands of desperately needed jobs); but it’s probably this lack of self-awareness and inability to see reality as it is that makes them so poor at their jobs!
Philippe Dauman
2009 salary – $42.3 million
2010 salary – $84.5 million
2011 salary – $43.1 million – VIA only earned $86 million that year, this greedy piece of baguette STOLE half the company’s earnings from its shareholders.
Consistently the #2 – #5 highest paid entertainment company CEOs, despite miserable profits. During Dauman’s time, VIA has yielded a return on investment of 6%. Miserable. The management of this company is stealing the shareholders’ money… and the biggest shareholder, Sumner Redstone, enables it.
Yes, MTV is broken. Its “brand” gets more and more confusing as they stray away more and more from the music focus that attracted young viewers in the first place.
It has been broken since Liquid TV and the old Beavis and Butthead left in the 90s!
Just because you’re 30 and grew up watching Beavis and Butthead doesn’t mean MTV shouldn’t evolve and appeal to a new generation. That’s like saying NBC is broken because they ended FRIENDS. wtf?
Yes, it is broken.
It’s called MUSIC Television. What’s the one thing you almost never see on MTV?
Let go of the past, people. IF MTV could get mega ratings running music videos all day they would. The problem with MTV is it’s always been a youth network– youth are fickle and in many cases don’t watch TV. Some of MTV’s “hit series” have all the longevity of a flash-in-the-pan pop song. And that’s the challenge for Daniels– to continually stoke the reality pipeline because their shows tend to pop big and then drop off quickly– as the audience looks for the next big, fresh thing. If she can come up with a couple sustainable franchises (ala the Real World or Road Rules) she’ll have worked a miracle. I actually think she’s up to the task. She’s tireless, instinctive, and a fighter for what she believes in.
Music aside, the problem is that the linear platform for MTV is targeting a generation that goes online for “TV”. Ratings are sure to suffer….
Hey Chief!!! Why don’t you step down and let someone else run the company. You stink!
This is another beautiful example of how messed up this industry really is. A another lousy CEO whose making all the wrong decisions and screwing up this town. Another prime example of the blind leading the blind. AIR ONLY MUSIC VIDEOS STUPID!!!! AND THEN YOU WON’T HAVE RATING ISSUES!!!!
HA! Saying “Why doesn’t MTV play music videos anymore?!” is a statement that is old enough to drive. NO ONE CARES ABOUT MUSIC VIDEOS. They haven’t since 2005 when all of them became accessible via Youtube.
Now I agree they have gone far, but Awkward, Teen Wolf, and The Inbetweeners were/are all good steps in the right direction. MTV isn’t music television anymore. It hasn’t been for close to 10 years now. Get over it.
The problem with MTV is that ALL of there current reality series are aged and they haven’t been able to launch any new reality series other than Jersey Shore spinoffs whose ratings were mediocre at best. Other than the scripted hits Teen Wolf and AWKWARD the current scripted series failed because of lack of promotion and scheduling. MTV has the platform to air edgy content but lately they resorted to generic series whose audience could care less. What made a series like AWKWARD stand out was the fact that the story was something relatable to a younger demo but the writing and execution was funny and fresh.
MTV, in its present form, sucks! They’ve gone away from its core musical programming and gone into reality programming!
A great way to draw attention to the fact that your network is broken is to deny that your network is broken.
Another broken Viacom channel….who’s surprised?
Looking back — Who would have ever thought that MTV’s apex was the TRL era?
Sadly, I think it was. And ironically it was probably the last time the channel seriously focused on music. Maybe there is a connection here?
MTV broke when they dropped music from “Music Television” (and I’m not referring to the literal word, as that was a mere overdue formality.)
But, for better or worse, MTV was a product of its time – the 80s, when music videos were all the rage and creativity and imagination were abundant. To remain in existence, MTV had no choice but to look to the future, with the advent of the internet, as cable TV expanded its own horizons and as the youth started listening to streaming music and iPods and lost interest in sitting around and watching music videos.
Yeah, right. And the Titanic didn’t sink either.
MTV became broken the minute music videos were no longer aired.
People say bring back music videos but MTV hasn’t really aired music videos consistently for over 15 years. Also it’s not as if there is a tremendous amount of great pop music coming out at the moment; the pop music landscape is almost entirely confined to garbage like Justin Bieber, Rihanna, etc.
I think MTV’s problems lie more with the switch to predominantly scripted series; unfortunately as we see with all of the abysmal network shows there simply is not a lot of quality writing talent around.
Not broken? What a joke! Despite the fact that the network is bleeding money daily (not helped by the DirectTV debacle last summer) senior staff continues to use their corporate credits cards as their personal bank accounts, using them to stay at five star hotels, purchase designer clothing for personal use and get chauffeured-around by private drivers. Meanwhile, they spend almost zero attention and dollars on development and hire over-the-hill executives that have FAILED at other networks. The big elephant in the room is that young people DO NOT WATCH TV ANYMORE and there is nobody at any of the networks who seem to understand and address this. Everyone I know on staff at all the MTV Networks (Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, Spike, TV Land) are preparing to jump off the sinking ship if they haven’t done so already. Suddenly, there’s a lot of “afternoon doctor’s appointments” (read: job interviews). There is sheer panic in the air over there as people are realizing that their days are numbered. Even if they get rid of the clueless and out of touch Dauman, fire the entire staff and stage a massive do-over with smarter and more savvy executives, this colossal, antiquated TV beast is D.O.A.
MTV needs more music videos and music-related shows (i.e. concerts, etc.)!
They’re delusional- been over for years. Guess they’re waiting to bring out the casket
MTV is broken. Seriously Viacom execs need to listen to thier audence; to much reality tv on MTV don’t cut it as a music videos which MTV started off with back in the early 80s. Or did ITunes Kill the video star?
Are you kidding me with these comments about MTV playing videos right now? They don’t play videos BECAUSE VIDEOS HAVE LOW RATINGS. YOU DON’T WATCH THEM.
You know what DOES get ratings? REAL WORLD. JERSEY SHORE. YOU WATCH THOSE.
Stop whining. You get what you deserve.
well put
The fact you could say you are not broken when your execs greenlight a show like 16 and pregnant is absurd.
Its funny though, ask the folks in development who their target demo is and they will cling to a female demo of 18-30. I remember the good old days when you turned on MTV to watch pretty people doing sexy things. It worked then, and for some reason i think it will work now. The network is run by morons from top to bottom.
To put this one simple, MTV BEEN dead!!