Things Continue to Go Poorly for MTV USA. President Out After One Year.
You might remember some stories from last year about how a guy named Sean Atkins was brought in by parent Viacom to turn around the failing fortunes of MTV. Vowing to bring MTV back to its music roots, he instituted a series of change in that direction. Nice effort, but nothing worked. MTV’s ratings continue to fall. Okay, plummet.
Atkins is now out as president after 13 months. His replacement is Chris McCarthy. Deadline Hollywood reports:
McCarthy is being tasked with leading MTV to a ratings turnaround similar to the one he has shepherded at VH1. It won’t be easy. MTV’s ratings have been sliding for the past half-decade, down almost 50% in adults 18-49 since 2011, when it was a Top 10 network. These days MTV has fallen outside of the Top 20 and sometime out of the Top 30, ranking lower than once-also-ran sibling VH1.
He’s got a tough job. Younger viewers have moved away from TV to things like Musical.ly, Snapchat and other social media platforms. The rise of Netflix and YouTube certainly didn’t help, either. The return of Total Request Live meant nothing to them.
So what’s the future of MTV? As they say, stay tuned. More coverage at the Globe and Mail.
