Who

Judy McGrath is the chair and CEO of MTV Networks, the Viacom-owned cable behemoth that controls every other cable channel on the dial including MTV, VH1, TV Land, Comedy Central, CMT, and Nickelodeon.

Backstory

The daughter of a teacher and a social worker, Scranton native McGrath started her career at Mademoiselle and Glamour. She was living in a Gramercy Park apartment with seven other women when Bob Pittman offered her a job as a promo copywriter at an upstart called MTV in 1981. (She landed the job thanks to Pittman's then-wife, Sandy, who was a friend and former colleague at Mademoiselle.) McGrath took the job and by 1991 she'd risen to chief creative officer. Two years later, she was bumped up to president of the network, where she oversaw the creation of mid-'90s fare like Beavis and Butthead and Singled Out, as well as a well-publicized campaign to put the "M" back in MTV circa 1997, culminating in the creation of TRL.

By 2003, McGrath had moved up to group president of MTV Networks; she managed the company's portfolio of music-related channels and spearheaded the launch of gay channel Logo. Things took an abrupt turn in September 2006, though, when Sumner Redstone fired McGrath's longtime boss and mentor Tom Freston, who Redstone faulted for not purchasing MySpace when he had the chance. (It went to Rupert Murdoch, of course.) Following speculation that she might loyally follow Freston out the door, top Viacom brass persuaded her to stay and she was promoted to chair and CEO of MTV Networks.

Of note

McGrath presides over a 100-plus channel operation when you account for the company's international properties, and the media conglomerate rakes in some $7 billion a year. While there are indeed a number of bright spots within the MTV empire—ratings are robust at Comedy Central and VH1—as of late all eyes are on the ailing flagship, MTV. The channel's single biggest challenge has been its digital strategy, or lack thereof. The first stop for music-seeking teens in the pre-internet era, MTV is now scrambling to reach a youth market dispersed across all sorts of media platforms (cell phones, game consoles, social networking sites) and has had to stand by the sidelines as its audience has flitted away to places like MySpace and Facebook.

McGrath and team have tried to make amends with a series of initiatives: They've made several smaller acquisitions, including Atom Entertainment, IM service Xfire, and the maker of Guitar Hero, Harmonix Systems; they launched Urge (a failed, ersatz iTunes); unveiled a social networking site called Flux; and launched Rhapsody America, another wannabe iTunes which they created in partnership with Real Networks. But it's still a game of catch up for the one-time music leader.

Inner circle

McGrath's right hand is Van Toffler, the president of MTV Networks Music and Logo Group. The LA-based Brian Graden heads up programming at the company's music channels and Logo; Doug Herzog oversees laddy networks like Comedy Central and Spike TV; Cyma Zarghami controls the kid-oriented channels like Nickleodeon; and Debra Lee is in charge of BET. Three recent departures: former president and COO Michael Wolf, the brainy strategist who came over from McKinsey and was elbowed out in January 2007; chief digital officer Jason Hirschhorn, who was unceremoniously dumped after failing to revamp the company's web strategy; and MTV president Christina Norman, who relinquished her job atop the underperforming channel in 2008. McGrath herself reports to Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman.

Personal

McGrath lives with her husband Michael Corbett, a stay-at-home dad, on the Upper West Side. (Robert Hurwitz is a neighbor.) They have a daughter named Anna.