- For Viacom (VIA, VIAB), MTV has always been the company's key entree into 18- to 34-year-olds, a coveted youth buyer group, but the success of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report made Comedy Central front and center -- which means replacing those shows' hosts becomes a more fraught task.
- The exits of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are serious business for the comedy channel. Stewart replacement Trevor Noah (announced March 30) received flak over some controversial old jokes before Stewart and the network publicly stood up for him. Colbert replacement Larry Wilmore and The Nightly Show drew about 963K viewers in its debut, while the final episode of The Colbert Report drew 2.5M viewers.
- "Losing Colbert and Stewart is a disaster," says MediaTech Capital's Porter Bibb. "The replacements, no offense, are nonstarters ... no one on the horizon is capable of filling that void."
- "It's not hyperbole at all to compare the impact of Stewart's departure with the times that people like Walter Cronkite and Johnny Carson left their shows," says Syracuse professor Robert Thompson.
- Meanwhile, Pivotal's Brian Wieser thinks high risk means high potential reward for Viacom: "We think that the company's programming will continue to generate high-single-digit revenue growth from licensing specific properties or channels to emerging distributors and by capitalizing on the leverage it has in negotiating bundles with incumbents." His price target is 96; VIA closed today +0.5% to $71.19.
- Previously: Key talent loss for Viacom as Stewart to depart 'Daily Show' (Feb. 10 2015)