Analyst Sees Bullish Situation at MTV Beyond Jersey Shore
Rich Greenfield of BTIG Research continues to be bullish on Viacom partly because of recent vitality at MTV and its other cable networks.
Pointing to some recent programming successes, plus the buzz surrounding the return of Jersey Shore, Greenfield writes that “investors can no longer say MTV is ‘dead,’ and that the generation that used to watch MTV is now all about video games, texting and social networking. If you put content on TV that speaks to the current generation of teens/young-adults, people watch…it’s still that simple (their parents watch too).”
Greenfield notes that while not every MTV show has been a hit (Warren the Ape), the new season of Teen Mom opened above last year and the new series If You Really Knew Me is off to a solid start.
“While investors are becoming a bit more concerned about the ad market outlook looking out over the next 6-9 months as economic fears are building again, MTV’s ad revenues should continue to accelerate over the course of 2010,” Greenfield says. “MTV’s 2010 upfront was dramatically better than its 2009 upfront, due to ratings’ improvements (which should lead to an acceleration in ad revenue from Q1 2010’s 1% rate).”
Daniel Quintanilla commented:
And yet, how on earth, and why is THE REAL WORLD even still on the air? It's now gotta be MTV's lowest rated show in history, where it use to be a jewel for MTV. I'm sure BUMIM-MURRAY's paying for that time as if it were an infomercial, so it avoids MTV from cancelling it.
Daniel Quintanilla commented:
The only ones who bury their heads in their faces, and in the sand, are anyone connected to THE HILLS. What anguish ADAM DIVELLO, and maybe LAUREN CONRAD (if at all), are going through to see a gem once known as THE HILLS give away to such fodder like TEEN MOM, 16 AND PREGNANT, and IF YOU REALLY KNEW ME, which hurts 1,000,000 times worse than JERSEY SHORE could ever do.