A Funny Thing Happened

Call it the anti-network. For every sternly self-important news program, overblown sports extravaganza and treacly after-school special the other networks throw at the viewing public, Comedy Central has the perfect tongue-in-cheek response. Born in 1990 from the union of two struggling comedy-based channels, Comedy Central has emerged as an industry innovator and cable powerhouse, now seen in more than 70 million homes nationwide. With such hits as South Park, Win Ben Stein’s Money, BattleBots and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Comedy Central has also fashioned itself as the culture’s preeminent arbiter of edgy TV comedy chic.

At the helm of this careening comedy ship is the cable network’s CEO and president Larry Divney, one of the few true sales guys to rise through the selling ranks to occupy the top spot at a major corporate entity. After spending 15 years establishing himself in radio sales with ABC and CBS in New York and Chicago, in 1981 Divney made the shift to cable television, joining a fledgling startup called MTV as the network’s first vice president of ad sales. From MTV Divney moved to the Cable Health Network (now Lifetime), CNN and A&E before joining the Comedy Network in 1989. In February 1999, Divney ascended from his position as executive vice president of ad sales to the corner office at the already renamed Comedy Central.

Nice Guy Finishes First

Viewers familiar with the outrageous characters Comedy Central has foisted on the nation might be surprised to find that the network’s CEO is such a down-to-earth, likeable guy. Contrary to South Park’s foul-mouthed cartoon tykes or The Daily Show’s edgily sardonic reporters, Divney displays the reserved confidence and good-natured humor of a man at the pinnacle of a successful sales career.

Asked what he considers Comedy Central’s unique selling proposition in the increasingly flooded television marketplace, Divney talks about the specific identity the network’s programmers have created that viewers simply cannot find anywhere else. “There’s a lot of comedy out there,” he admits, “but we are individualistic in our programming. We target a very specific 25- to 34-year-old adult, and we do that with a distinct personality. If you look at the portfolio of shows, you’re just not going to find this stuff elsewhere. About five years ago we thought about acquiring popular comedy shows and putting all our money into buying shows like Friends. It might have been successful, but it didn’t offer any distinctiveness. As [former Comedy Central CEO] Doug Herzog put it, we make our own gravy. Sometimes it doesn’t work as well as we’d like, but hey, even the best gravy has lumps.”

While programming is, of course, the foundation for any successful television network, Divney brings an understanding of and appreciation for the sales side that’s frequently lost on CEOs. “Our salespeople are as individualistic as our programming,” he says. “There is no single ‘Comedy Central type.’ And that stems from my basic philosophy of sales management, which is to allow people to be themselves. Some of our reps are more serious; others are really good-natured. But at the end of the day the key we look for is that they all make it clear they like what they do. And our job is to keep it that way.”

Selling in Principle

Belying the stereotypical superficiality and slick salesmanship the public generally associates with show business executives, Divney says he values integrity and relationship building over making a quick sale, an ethic he credits his early mentors with teaching him. “Having integrity is not only the right thing to do, it’s also the most effective,” he says. “In sales, integrity first means representing your product and your company truthfully. Second, it means following through on your word. Third, you have to be very careful not to oversell. Sometimes things go awry and there’s nothing you can do – a promotion changes, who knows what – and you have to go back to the client immediately and tell them exactly what happened. Some people will say, ‘Let’s tell them this and spin it like this.’ Don’t fall into that trap. Go in, tell them the truth about what happened and take the criticism. That’s how you build a reputation as someone who is square with people, and that has long-term impact on a sales career.”

Weighing in on the ongoing debate about whether great salespeople are born or made, Divney recalls some of the critical lessons he had to learn as a fresh-faced rep before getting anywhere in sales. “I was a shy person coming out of college and somewhat introverted. My first job, I was working for a three-person company,” he says, “and my first call was on a major New York agency. I was so embarrassed about the company I worked for and intimidated by all the hotshots in the reception area that I could only whisper the name of my company to the receptionist so that no one else would hear. But what I eventually learned – and this is something the company owner taught me – was that even if you are selling for a small-time operator, you have to have pride in what you’re selling and who you are. And you should comport yourself as if you are with one of the big boys.

“With the small markets and radio stations I was selling back then, there wasn’t a big demand from advertisers, so it was a real selling job to attach value to them. You couldn’t just be an order-taker – you really had to sell. Three years later I was working for the top radio rep company as one of the youngest people they’d ever hired.”

Besides overcoming his shyness, Divney says, he also had to learn to combat his “nice guy” propensity to want to accommodate people, particularly customers who had turned him down. “For me the hardest part was learning not to take no for an answer,” he says. “I’m personable, I’m a nice guy, I’m accommodating, and that can make it difficult in sales. The customer says, ‘Sorry Larry, we can’t buy’ and I’d respond with ‘OK, good, well, nice to see you again.’ But you can’t just walk away and say, ‘Oh well, maybe next time,’ even if that’s your inclination, and mine definitely was. If you’re not going to get the business you have to find out why. Thank them for the opportunity, then do additional probing. They think they’re doing the right thing with their money – no one is out to waste their company’s money – so find out what their thinking is, and then if you can get another shot, go back at them.”

Managing to Succeed

Divney learned to say his company’s name aloud and go back for a second shot at selling his services well enough that by age 30 he was named national sales manager at a major Chicago radio station. That’s when the learning curve ramped up all over again. “By the time I was in my late 20s I had been pretty successful at selling,” he recalls. “So I got my first sales management job. That’s also when I realized that I really didn’t know much. You think you know a lot until all of a sudden you have to manage people. Not that managing yourself is always easy, but it’s a piece of cake compared to managing even one other person, not to mention an entire sales department of people.”

The greatest challenge for the nice-guy sales manager involved evaluating performance and delivering constructive criticism to his reps. “Honest, constructive feedback is something that you often just don’t see in the field,” Divney says. “Salespeople may be doing a good job, but that doesn’t mean you can’t help them to improve. Plus you’re hamstrung by the fact that you don’t necessarily see them in the field, or if you listen to what they say, they’re just always selling – ‘I did this, I talked to that guy, this guy loves me, I’ve got him in my pocket’ – that sort of thing. So it was hard for me to assess how they were truly doing, and as a result I tended to let people off the hook.”

He has now developed a system of assessing performance based on of a number of components, including his own gut instincts, the assessments of others and what he observes, Divney says.The process begins in the hiring stage, which he runs more as a relaxed conversation than an interrogation. “On an interview I like to ask a lot of questions that have nothing to do with business,” he says. “Such questions as ‘What are your passions?’ I don’t care much what they are specifically, but I want to make sure you have some, because to perform well in a sales career you’re going to have to tap into your passions. As a guy I worked with at ABC used to put it, ‘This ain’t just a hobby.’”

In addition to such typical evaluation tools as performance reviews and bottom-line sales results, Divney says, he also likes to observe employees when they’re at social events or in meetings, and listens to what co-workers have to say about one another. And like any good manager, he’s not above looking to the occult for answers. “I’m pretty good at assessing people,” he says. “So sometimes I might take a person’s hand and pretend that I’m a palm reader. Based on what I already know about that person, I’ll share my insights into their personality or whatever I want to talk to them about. Invariably the response will be, ‘Man, how did you know that?’ But I’m just using the palm to make a point – I’m not really a palm reader. Not a professional, anyway.”

Leadership You Herd About

When he’s not spooking out employees with his psychic powers, Divney says, he believes in a relaxed executive approach that gives salespeople a great deal of leeway. He calls it the “sheepdog philosophy.” “I very much believe in the autonomy of the salesperson,” he says. “I believe in hiring good people, telling them what you expect from them and getting out of their way. The sheepdog philosophy says, ‘I’m not going to put much in front of you. So your path in front is wide open. But I will bark at you every now and then. It’s what I call the strategy bark. ‘Hey, you’re off strategy – get back in there.’ But a key part of that is structured feedback. You have to review everyone regularly, and then give them real, honest, structured feedback.

“And from the perspective of the rep, if you’re not getting that feedback, you should demand it. Once a quarter you should sit down with your manager and say, ‘I’m having a tough time with this – what do you think?’ I tell my staff that if they’re not getting feedback and nurturing from management, to ask for it and I will back you.”

Though Divney’s talents as a sales manager have long been a matter of public record, some doubts remained about his ability to run the network when he ascended to the top spot in February 1999. He even allows that some time had to pass before he felt at ease behind the big desk. “It took me a while to realize I was the boss,” he acknowledges. “In the number two spot I sort of flew under the radar, and to an extent I was more of a peer to everyone. But all of a sudden you become the boss of your buddies.”

He quips, “That’s when you learn the true meaning of ‘It’s lonely at the top.’”

More Funny Stuff on the Way

Lonely or not, Divney quickly took control of the Comedy Central rudder, bringing in new people to head the sales and programming departments, while rearranging both the marketing and technology divisions. Looking to the future, he describes a dual approach to building the Comedy Central brand. One is to turn the company Website into a primary destination with original content all its own, with the end goal to make www.comedycentral.com into a heavily visited locus of online comedy cool.

However, most important is the programming side. Success in the network business means creating value for affiliates by delivering higher quality programming to users and subscribers. That also means ramping up development of new series and putting more pilots in the pipeline. Unlike the broadcast networks, which develop dozens of new pilots a year (only a few of which will ever be picked up), Comedy Central takes greater chances and then stands behind the shows that make it on the air. Divney cites such hits as The Man Show, which was originally developed at ABC but sent network censors into conniptions, and South Park as shows that found a home at Comedy Central, despite misgivings in other corners of the television industry. “When I first saw the original South Park short called ‘The Spirit of Christmas’ I had tears in my eyes I was laughing so hard,” he recalls, mentioning the notoriously hilarious but sacrilegious and profane five-minute segment that became an underground hit in the winter of 1997. “But then I said to myself, ‘How are we possibly going to air that?’ But not only were we able to do it, South Park has become a hit show for us and also a genuine cultural phenomenon. We take chances, and that’s how you have success. Just look at Survivor. Would that have ever happened if everyone was sticking to the same paradigms?”

Bot and Sold

Comedy Central’s latest success is BattleBots, a spectacle of steel and Plexiglas carnage that pits one remote-controlled robot against another in a series of three-minute bouts to the death. Premiering on September 5, 2000, BattleBots was the network’s second-highest rated debuting program.

Understandably, some skeptics wondered what two 200-pound metal behemoths smashing each other into smithereens had to do with comedy. The programming folks, however, took the simple premise, added smart-mouthed announcers, comic interviewers and tongue-in-cheek background segments to remake the show in the Comedy Central image. The formula worked. Since joining the regular schedule, BattleBots has become a bona fide hit, expanding from a half-hour to a full hour every week. Based on the program’s success, Divney jokingly says the network now refers to itself as “the worldwide leader in robotic sports.”

Pleased as he is with the show’s success, Divney is not about to let Comedy Central rest on any laurels, robotic or otherwise. With ownership of the network split evenly between corporate parents Viacom and Time Warner-AOL, the CEO has demanding bosses of his own to answer to. And like any creative enterprise, Comedy Central constantly fights to retain its best people, especially when the broadcast networks begin flashing the promise of bigger contracts and larger audiences. In its short life Comedy Central has already helped make, and then lost, such stars as Craig Kilborn, host of CBS’s Late Show, and Bill Maher of ABC’s Politically Incorrect, as well as any number of writers and production people. Rather than lament the exodus of talent – both in front of and behind the camera – Divney views it as a sign that they’re doing something right. “We want people here who seek opportunity,” he says. “I love to see that. And when people leave, I absolutely wish them well. Hopefully they gave us a good day’s work, earned their pay and are on to bigger and better things. I hope they learned something while they were here. I’d like Comedy Central to have a reputation as a company that hires really good, young, talented, hard-working, fun-loving people who go on to other things. You build a reputation like that – of a place where strong, smart people want to be – and it’s the best recruiting tool you can have.”