Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman has credited research with helping rejuvenate some of the media group’s television networks, such as BET and MTV.

Dauman told a Deutsche Bank conference this week: “Over the last few years we have increased our investment in research: market research on our viewers and brand research.”

Through the research the company was able to take “a hard look” at what those networks stood for, Dauman said, and to “focus the programming around what the research tell us”.

MTV Networks had already acknowledged the importance of research to its business when it promoted Colleen Fahey Rush to the newly created position of executive vice president and chief research officer back in February. But it’s good to see that contributions made are similarly recognised at the highest level.