{"id":105114,"date":"2025-08-23T21:16:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T21:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/105114\/"},"modified":"2025-08-23T21:16:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T21:16:07","slug":"former-comedy-central-chief-doug-herzog-on-paramounts-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/105114\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Comedy Central Chief Doug Herzog On Paramount’s Future"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tDoug Herzog<\/a>, a former top exec at Viacom (now part of Paramount) says his alma mater will soon look a lot different in the wake of its just-closed merger with Skydance.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI would believe that 24 months from now, when we take a look at Paramount, it will not closely resemble what it is today,\u201d Herzog said in a TV of Tomorrow podcast<\/a> appearance Friday. \u201cAnd I honestly think that\u2019s the way forward. These legacy media companies, if they\u2019re going to survive \u2013 and, by the way, survival is not mandatory \u2013 I think they kind of have to blow it up and take some chances and embrace the tech world in a way that they have slowly been doing, which I think you\u2019ll see at Paramount.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe conversation was hosted by Rick Howe, himself a cable vet and a former Showtime exec. It touched on a number of Herzog\u2019s achievements during his years at MTV and then two stints overseeing Comedy Central. He rose to the position of President of Viacom\u2019s Music Entertainment Group before stepping down in 2017.<\/p>\n

\n\tHerzog noted the \u201cdeep pockets\u201d of Paramount CEO David Ellison<\/a>, the son of Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison who took the top job after the $8.4 billion merger finally closed<\/a> earlier this month. \u201cAs much as he, for Wall Street purposes lately, has positioned himself as a tech person and he\u2019s got that DNA, he\u2019s also a content guy,\u201d Herzog observed. \u201cHe\u2019s been running his own studio now for quite some time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe financial structure of big media companies, which benefited for decades from the dual revenue stream of distribution and advertising, is now cratering due to cord-cutting. Traditional players are also shifting resources to their streaming services as they continue to try to close the gap with Netflix.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI kind of think you need to blow it up,\u201d Herzog said. \u201cThe model\u2019s kind of broken. The strength of [Paramount] was in the cable networks. It\u2019s all done. It\u2019s done. So, you need a different idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tParamount leaders in recent weeks have rebuffed the notion that they would spin off their cable portfolio as Comcast and Warner Bros. Discovery are in the process of doing. They also reaffirmed their commitment to BET Networks, which had gone on the block two years ago during Bob Bakish\u2019s tenure as Paramount Global CEO. Many networks and franchises in the cable portfolio will be \u201credefined\u201d<\/a> rather than immediately sold off, the new executive regime has asserted.<\/p>\n

\n\tOne franchise that remains vibrant after nearly three decades is South Park<\/a>, whose creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, signed a $1.5 billio<\/a>n<\/a> renewal<\/a> just as the show\u2019s incisive new season was beginning its run. Herzog was running Comedy Central when the show first went on the air, and the podcast included a lengthy look back at the animated mainstay\u2019s origin story.<\/p>\n

\n\tHerzog said the show\u2019s durability has been \u201cglorious,\u201d but initially it seemed a longshot to even see the air. In a reversal of industry norms, he said, the fact that Comedy Central at the time was a joint venture between Viacom and Time Warner worked to the show\u2019s advantage. Typically, JVs are so micro-managed and involve so much tension and in-fighting among the partners that their output is hampered. Not so in this case, Herzog maintained.<\/p>\n

\n\tThen-Viacom network boss Tom Freston and HBO chief Jeff Bewkes \u201cappreciated\u201d the show and \u201cgot it immediately,\u201d Herzog recalled. \u201cBut I thought to myself, \u2018If I only worked for one of them, if the company was fully owned by one of those corporations, would we have been able to put South Park on?\u2019 Because it was so dangerous, it was so over-the-top, nobody had seen anything like it. I remember waking up in a cold sweat about a week before we debuted and thinking, can I go to jail for this?\u2019 It was so out-there. But I always wonder whether, if I was working for one single corporation whether they would have gotten cold feet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHowe said the situation reminded him of the trope of a child of divorced parents who tells their father, \u201cWell, Mom said it was OK.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHerzog replied, \u201cWell, they both said it was OK, but I think they were also both afraid to tell me no. There were very few benefits of a JV \u2026 [but] that was certainly one of them. I was largely left on my own and to my own devices.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tUltimately, Herzog said, South Park became \u201cthe house on which Comedy Central was built.\u201d At a time when the network was only three years old and had in only 40 million homes, less than half of the pay-TV universe, \u201cIt was the first real hit, it put us in business. And here we are 27, 28 years later. They\u2019re still going strong. They\u2019re still making trouble and pissing off everybody. They deserve every penny they get. They\u2019re absolute geniuses.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Doug Herzog, a former top exec at Viacom (now part of Paramount) says his alma mater will soon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105115,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[18205,69790,88,17836,4210,92],"class_list":{"0":"post-105114","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-david-ellison","9":"tag-doug-herzog","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-paramount-skydance-merger","12":"tag-south-park","13":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}