The company is expanding the oversight of Chris McCarthy, who currently oversees the MTV, VH1, Logo and CMT networks. McCarthy will add oversight of Comedy Central, Paramount Network, TV Land and Smithsonian Channel in the shakeup, according to a source familiar with the matter.David Nevins, chief creative officer of CBS and CEO of Showtime Networks, will add oversight of BET Networks in the shift. Scott Mills will continue to run BET, but will now report to Nevins.
Two senior executives will be leaving the company: Kent Alterman, who currently leads Comedy Central, Paramount Network and TV Land, and Sarah Levy, who is COO of Viacom Media Networks, will both exit after the merger closes. Alterman, meanwhile, was handed Paramount Network — Viacom’s broad-skewing cabler — last year. His predecessor, Kevin Kay, was pushed out a year after its rebranding. Comedy Central, under Alterman’s leadership, has seen 10 consecutive quarters of year-over-year share growth.
Bakish’s larger plan to rejuvenate Viacom was to focus on key brands BET, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon and Paramount Network. All have changed leadership since Bakish arrived at Viacom.
When I come back, I want it to be as Kent Alterman’s assistent. I think I’ve done enough good deeds to earn that.
Kent is an awesome dude.
Kent is an incredible production partner, creative ally, an unsettlingly funny comedic voice, a fucking great director and...a cool-ass friend. Let’s hope his next job is ‘King of Hollywood’
A lovely man and a pleasure to work with.
The nicest smartest person. Wherever he goes will be better for it. And I will try to follow him there.
Based on the headshots alone this augurs poorly for Comedy Central
hack_stein is this you
This is the guy that said he would never greenlight anime network 24/7 fart
Kent was always great to us writers who worked with him. The fact his farewell note told his fellow execs to: “remember we are dependent on talent, and they are always in a more vulnerable position than we are” - shows why he was so respected by the creatives on our side.
He brought us some of the best comedy programming in recent memory. Comedy Central under his leadership has been the one crown jewel in Viacom’s bevy of cable channels. I hope that continues to be the case but worry it might not.
That’s a nice and extremely well written letter.
G💚canlarım