Monday night's Comedy Central roast of ousted "Two and a Half Men" star Charlie Sheen was greatly aided by social media such as Twitter and Facebook -- but the use of social media proved to be a double-edged sword, Doug Herzog, president of MTV Networks Entertainment Group, said at TheWrap's media leadership conference, TheGrill, Tuesday.
Herzog noted that the Sheen roast -- which aired on the same night as the premiere of the new, Sheen-less version of "Two and a Half Men" -- drew 6 million total viewers and amassed a 4.5 rating among the coveted adults 18-49 demographic. That made it the network's second-highest-rated broadcast ever.
(Photographs by Jonathan Alcorn)
No doubt those numbers were aided by Comedy Central's Facebook and Twitter campaigns, along with 130,000 tweets about the roast that rang across the Twitterverse on Sunday night. But while praising the effect of social media, Herzog cautioned that its exact impact is difficult to gauge.
"It's hard to figure out what that means," Herzog told the moderator, TheWrap's Brent Lang. "Ratings are a lot more important to us than tweets at the moment."
Also read: Steve Levitan at TheGrill: We Need a Better Way of Counting Viewers on Emerging Platforms
Herzog was less happy with the Twitter effect during the taping of the roast, as details and jokes began to leak out about the ceremony more than a week before it was scheduled to air.
Herzog said that could lead to a change in the approach that Comedy Central takes to roasts in the future.
"They were tweeting from the press room; it didn't dawn on me till I got there that that would be happening," Herzog recalled. "Maybe it means that, in the future, we might have to close the window between when we tape and when we air, because it does get out there."
Even so, Herzog added, "Buzz is important to us, so buzz is part of the Comedy Central secret sauce, and Twitter is a great instrument for amplifying that."
Herzog further noted that, with the young, male, and tech-friendly audience that Comedy Central is courting, social media is a particularly important element for the cable outlet.
(In the video below, Herzog discusses the use of streaming video as a potential revenue-replacer for the waning DVD market.)
Herzog also addressed the racy content of the Sheen roast and, in general, the balance that Comedy Central strikes between keeping its programming cutting-edge and not stepping over the line. According to Herzog, raunchy laughs aren't necessarily the goal, but if things happen to take a turn in that direction, so be it.
