"With all due respect, the new media today are more about technology than creativity. I love YouTube but it's a tool." Doug Herzog
At our Lunch at Michael's, Doug Herzog, the executive responsible for acquiring South Park, creating Comedy Central's The Daily Show, selecting both Craig Kilborn and Jon Stewart as anchors, and giving the go-ahead to The Colbert Report was eager to
promote Comedy Central's new Fall series, including The Naked Trucker and T-Bones Show, Sara Silverman Programme, Half Way Home and Freak Show. But instead we mostly reminisced about the early days of MTV and the legendary team that built the network and its siblings over the past 25 years. Doug originally joined MTV in 1984 and is now president of the newly formed MTV Networks Entertainment Group, comprising Comedy Central, Spike and TV Land.
Doug had come to the attention of the young executive team at MTV when he captured an exclusive interview with rocker Bruce Springsteen for Entertainment Tonight, where he was a junior talent booking coordinator. "He was getting ready to release Born in the USA, and there was a lot of anticipation, but he wasn't doing any television. I knew
it was a long shot, but I started working on it and I targeted people he trusted and got them comfortable with the idea. When I actually got the interview, it really surprised the people at MTV who I had scooped and it attracted their attention. But," he recalls ruefully, "on the day our interview broke, Richard Burton died and our story was out of the headlines."
Jack Myers with MTV Networks' Doug Herzog at Michael's
As Doug and I enjoyed Michael's famed Cobb Salad (chopped and light on the dressing), we were surrounded by CBS' Les Moonves and Gil Schwartz (who stopped to chat with Penelope Cruz and
Bobby Shriver), Ron Perelman, Joe Armstrong, Cablevision's Barry Frey, 20th Television's Bob Cesa, Sirius Radio's Walt Sabo, Kurt Anderson and David Patrick Columbia with Hill & Knowlton's Jonathan Capehart.
Doug's first job was at CNN, working as a college intern in the Los Angeles Bureau the day the news network went on the air in June 1980, two months before the launch of MTV. "When I started
college, CNN, MTV and other cable networks didn't even exist. But when I was in high school in Paterson, New Jersey, I'd travel into Manhattan to watch the Knicks' games on cable. So I knew about cable and believed it would have a great future."
He had little idea how interesting it would become. After graduating from Emerson College in Boston (where he was good friends with Denis Leary and met his wife Noreen), Doug returned to CNN in L.A. as a
junior producer of CNN's entertainment news segments. A staff of four, all younger than 25, "were like kids in the candy store," Doug laughs. "Our bosses were asleep in Atlanta when we went on the air, and we were on our own."
Doug and his inexperienced colleagues would spend full days trying to attract one or two guests to the CNN studios at Sunset and Vine. "It was a real challenge," Doug recalls, "because no one wanted to come to the area at night. But the Simply Blues Club was upstairs and sometimes
we'd be able to grab famous people off the elevator." One guest who was always available when there was a cancellation or opening was Tom Hanks, who Doug considers his favorite all-time guest. "He was supremely nice and loved talk shows. He gave us his home number and
would always show up when I called. He still refers to me as 'the CNN guy' when we meet."
Four years later, CNN cancelled the L.A.-based entertainment news and asked Doug to move into hard news, but instead he moved to Entertainment Tonight, where he came to the attention of MTV. "I was at ET for a year," Doug reminisced. "Ted Turner was
starting a new music network and my friend Scott Sassa was going to run the network. He offered me $75,000 and a car, and at the same time John Sykes at MTV offered me a producer job for $40,000. Obviously, I turned down MTV but Sykes asked me to have breakfast with Bob Pittman, who was running the network. As a courtesy, I met with Bob and he
upped the offer to $50,000 and predicted the Turner Music Network wouldn't last. I drove to Scott's home to tell him I'd decided to take the MTV job, and 30-days later MTV bought out Turner's network and closed it down."
Taking over as news director of a non-existent news department at MTV, Doug's job was convincing Pittman to invest in news. "They were crazy, heady days, and we had unbelievable fun," Doug recalls fondly. "Imagine everyone in our 20s. We'd think up an idea on Monday, have it on TV by
Friday, and it was all rock 'n roll! Someone said, let's take cameras to Spring Break, and a month later, we'd all be there. We weren't much older than the college kids, and all hell broke loose."
That was the beginning of a long career at MTV that spawned The Real World, Unplugged, Road Rules and Remote Control before Doug was elevated to president of Comedy Central in 1995, where he stayed until late 1998. Although he admits leaving MTV was like
leaving a family, Doug left the MTV fold to join Fox-TV as entertainment president and then joined USA Network as president, before returning home to MTV Networks and Comedy Central in 2005.
Thinking about how embedded MTV became in the culture, Doug recalls newly elected President Bill Clinton coming to the MTV Inaugural Ball and thanking MTV for its contribution to his election. "It's
one thing for Prince to thank MTV, but this was the leader of the free world. Judy (current MTV Networks president Judy McGrath) was in the production truck and literally fell off her seat."
"All roads came through MTV," Doug points out. "Whether it was music, politics, fashion or movies, everyone wanted to be on MTV. We never knew who would show up. Once Muhammad Ali walked in
off the street and asked to see [then MTV president] Tom Freston, who wasn't in. I went to meet him and the company stood still. It was overwhelming. It's the same today with TRL. People want to be there and you never know who will walk into the studio." (At our lunch at Michael's, Doug
spoke fondly of Freston as a "constant" who had been at MTV throughout its history. Just days later, Freston was removed as CEO of Viacom by company chairman Sumner Redstone.)
Doug Herzog & Family
"It's in the DNA of MTV to never stop growing and evolving, and to never stop understanding the audience," says Doug. "With all due respect, the new media today are more about technology than creativity. I love YouTube but it's a tool. The executives there are having a
different kind of fun and some are getting rich. We were having fun and creating something completely new. Some of the new media will stand the test of time like MTV and many [of these new companies] won't."
When he joined Comedy Central the first time, the Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan fan realized the network needed to matter in people's lives. "There had to be a reason for people to come everyday," Doug
believed. His idea: a cross between ESPN's Sportscenter, Howard Stern and The Today Show. His solution: The Daily Show, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Doug and his college sweetheart Noreen have three children. Their older son loves to watch Comedy Central pilots and "has great comedic instincts," Doug says, Their middle child, also a boy, is more artistic and athletic, while their daughter has talent as a dancer. In addition to his
work, children, bicycling and the New York Yankees, Doug is passionate about Teach for America, a non-profit group that recruits college seniors, trains them and places them in two year teaching programs at the most challenged public schools across the country. "It's like a Peace Corps for
Education," says Doug. "More than 65 percent stay in education, and we have 15,000 applications for 5,000 jobs. It's a tremendous program and our problem is funding for training and underwriting."
Relaxing over our coffees, Doug thinks back to his own college days at Emerson (where he is now on the Board of Trustees), and recalls the papers he wrote about combining television and music. "The professors gave me good grades, but they always wrote how unrealistic my
premise was. They said music and television simply didn't go together. But I always believed the merger of music and television was where the future would be. Nothing was more suited to who I was and
who I wanted to be," Doug says of MTV. "I'm glad I left and experienced the business world from the other side, and I'm especially glad I was able to come back."
