MTV's president is out after only a year as the network once at the center of youth culture continues to struggle for relevance.
Sean Atkins, who came to MTV from Discovery, quit Monday after the network's parent company installed another executive over him. Chris McCarthy, who's had some success overseeing sister networks VH1 and Logo, will now supervise MTV as well.
MTV has fought for attention with a youthful audience whose allegiances change quickly. The network averaged 1.48 million viewers in prime time at the end of 2011, and was down to 550,000 for the three months that ended Sept. 31, the Nielsen company said.
During the past year, viewership declined 16 percent, and 23 percent among MTV's target audience of people aged 18 to 34, Nielsen said.
Its most popular shows – "Teen Mom," ''Teen Wolf" and "Are You the One?" – have been around for a few years.
Atkins said he'd stay on the job as a consultant until January.
McCarthy was given the promotion by Doug Herzog, president of the Viacom Music and Entertainment Group. As leader of VH1 since last year, McCarthy has seen ratings go up while targeting an audience of older millennials. VH1 is planning a cooking series co-starring Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg, a series called "Daytime Divas" starring Vanessa Williams and a revival of "America's Next Top Model."
McCarthy has had a determined rise at Viacom, starting at the college network mtvU.
Local school staple “Lost on a Mountain in Maine” from 1939 hits the big screen nationwide
Most Maine schoolchildren know about the boy lost for more than a week in 1939 after climbing the state's tallest mountain. Now the rest of the U.S. is getting in on the story.
Opening in 650 movie theaters on Friday, "Lost on a Mountain in Maine" tells the harrowing tale of 12-year-old Donn Fendler, who spent nine days on Mount Katahdin and the surrounding wilderness before being rescued. The gripping story of survival commanded the nation's attention in the days before World War II and the boy's grit earned an award from the president.
For decades, Fendler and Joseph B. Egan's book, published the same year as the rescue, has been required reading in many Maine classrooms, like third-grade teacher Kimberly Nielsen's.
"I love that the overarching theme is that Donn never gave up. He just never quits. He goes and goes," said Nielsen, a teacher at Crooked River Elementary School in Casco, who also read the book multiple times with her own kids.
Separated from his hiking group in bad weather atop Mount Katahdin, Fendler used techniques learned as a Boy Scout to survive. He made his way through the woods to the east branch of the Penobscot River, where he was found more than 30 miles (48 kilometers) from where he started. Bruised and cut, starved and without pants or shoes, he survived nine days by eating berries and lost 15 pounds (7 kilograms).
The boy's peril sparked a massive search and was the focus of newspaper headlines and nightly radio broadcasts. Hundreds of volunteers streamed into the region to help.
The movie builds on the children's book, as told by Fendler to Egan, by drawing upon additional interviews and archival footage to reinforce the importance of family, faith and community during difficult times,... Read More