MTV Executives Resign in Latest Viacom Shakeup

A high-profile executive at MTV Networks is leaving the company as part of an upheaval of
Viacom executive ranks, a Viacom spokesman said.

Michael Wolf, a former McKinsey & Co. managing partner and well-known media strategist, will step down as MTV Networks' president after spending a little over a year at the company.

Nicole Browning, president of affiilate sales and marketing at MTV Networks, a 20-year veteran, is also leaving the company, Viacom said.

Wolf's departure, expected in February, comes a day after one of Hollywood's most powerful woman, Gail Berman, resigned as president of Viacom's Paramount Pictures after less than two
years on the job.

"We accomplished everything we set out to do together, restructuring our ad sales, affiliate sales and marketing businesses for the multiplatform world by bringing digital sales expertise and expanding the reach of our distribution strategy to include VOD (video on demand), wireless and Internet partners," MTV Networks CEO Judy McGrath said in a statement.

At MTV, Wolf crafted a deal to distribute clips from its cable shows over Google's advertising network last August, only to be upstaged a day later by a splashy deal News Corp. struck with the Internet search giant.

News Corp's deal, led by its MySpace social network, guaranteed revenue share payments of at least $900 million.

The latest departures from Viacom follow a string of exits as new chief executive Philippe Dauman, who returned to the company after the ouster of Tom Freston last September,
restructures the media company.