Colleen Fahey Rush, one of the longest-serving research executives in the media sector, is leaving her perch at Paramount Skydance, where she has worked since 1996.
“At Paramount, Research has never been a back-room operation. We earned a seat at the table — as strategists, translators, forecasters, and consultants. We built strong partnerships across the organization and at all levels of leadership,” Rush said in a statement posted on LinkedIn. “We delivered rigorous, impactful work — but the real magic was in how we brought it to life and helped the organization activate it. Together, we brought expertise in audiences, content, streaming, consumer products, live events, measurement, and more.”
Fahey Rush joined the company in 1996, when she was tied to networks such as VH1, Logo and CMT, and tasked with examining analytics and ad-sales research. A decade later, she was named chief research officer for all of the former Viacom’s cable networks, which to this day include MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central. Fahey Rush was often responsible for demonstrating how the company’s TV audiences — in the linear era, some of the industry’s youngest — behaved and consumed media and advertising.
The company’s younger cohort sometimes gave it license to buck industry trends. When the TV business was working to adopt a new measurement system in 2006 that tracked three days’ of viewership for a commercial or piece of content, Viacom initially declined to take part, cautioning that its younger viewers would likely not be counted as easily.
Fahey Rush maintained her chief research officer role as the company went through various changes — its second merger with CBS and its evolution into Paramount Global. Paramount was recently acquired by Skydance Media, and executives from that company have said they intend to cut costs with a major round of layoffs.
A spokesperson for the company was not able to offer immediate comment.
“I’m proud of what I built — of what we built. I made incredible friends along the way, and I’m deeply grateful for all of it,” Fahey Rush said.
