Discovery's Atkins To Head MTV, Friedman Departs

Amid a rough couple of periods for parent company Viacom, MTV is making a change at the top -- naming Sean Atkins president of MTV.

Atkins has been EVP/GM of digital media and strategy at Discovery Communications, responsible for the company’s original online video strategy and networks, including Revision3, SourceFed, Discovery News and TestTube.

He will replace Stephen Friedman, who had been at the top MTV post for seven years.

MTV has been struggling to maintain stable viewing in prime time -- down 15% in May among all total viewers to 589,000 versus the year before. More importantly, young women viewers, 18-34, has been sharply off -- down 23% in May to 185,000.

MTV recently made back some of its losses -- up to 194,000 women 18-34 viewers in the third quarter of 2015 and in 639,000 total average viewers.

Early in his tenure, Friedman was behind high-rated shows, including reality shows “Teen Mom,” “Catfish” and “Jersey Shore.” MTV moved recently into scripted series with uneven results.

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Atkins will report to Doug Herzog, president of the Viacom Music and Entertainment Group. MTV’s programming co-heads, Mina Lefevre, EVP/head of scripted development; and Lauren Dolgen, EVP of series development and head of reality programming. They will report to Atkins.

Before Discovery, Atkins had worked at HBO and Yahoo, holding senior-level positions in development, digital media, production, strategy, marketing, product development and consumer products.

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