It was a bleak day in early August at the Times Square headquarters of Viacom, the company that is the home of MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and Paramount’s film studios. Weak earnings led shares in the media conglomerate to plunge as much as 22 percent in trading before closing down 14 percent for the day, wiping out billions of dollars in market value.

Philippe Dauman, Viacom’s chief, called his 92-year-old boss, Sumner Redstone, to discuss the news. Redstone, the chairman of Viacom who controls about 80 percent of the company, told Dauman not to worry and that the company would be fine, according to executives briefed on the conversation.

Several current and former Viacom executives, as well as industry analysts, question whether everything is fine at Viacom.

So far this year, Viacom shares have plummeted about 37 percent, vastly underperforming the S&P 500, which is down about 4 percent. Plaguing the company are persistent declines in television ratings, weak ad sales and a lackluster film slate. Viacom also faces questions from Wall Street about more than $14 billion in stock buybacks, which analysts said could have been used to invest in or acquire fresh products or services.

That shift in perception is dramatic. This was the company that helped launch the careers of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, brought to life iconic characters like SpongeBob SquarePants and Dora the Explorer, and had generations demanding the music videos of MTV. Now, Viacom has lost its perch amid the explosion of competition from traditional and digital outlets, like Netflix, Snapchat, YouTube, Twitter, Vine and Facebook.

“There was a time when we defined what was cool for kids with MTV,” one senior Viacom executive said. “That isn’t the case anymore.”

Another concern is that the massive wave of consolidation sweeping across cable and satellite companies will greatly reduce the rates Viacom can charge for its programming and even creates the potential that cable or satellite companies like Dish could drop Viacom from their bundle of channels, since its programming is now available on a range of streaming services like Amazon and Hulu. Last year, more than 60 small cable operators dropped Viacom’s channels.

Goldman Sachs downgraded its valuation of Viacom this week. The firm said that there was pressure on the stock for several reasons, including the fact that ratings at its television networks declined 14 percent year over year, the sixth consecutive quarter of ratings declines, according to Goldman Sachs.

Thomas Dooley, chief operating officer of Viacom, called the criticism outdated, saying the company’s programming remained in high demand. Just this week, Viacom announced that it had struck distribution agreements with the streaming service Hulu and AT&T, which recently acquired the satellite provider DirecTV. Dooley said that ratings at some Viacom channels like Nickelodeon have shown signs of improvement and that the company has installed new leadership at other channels like MTV. He pointed to a 23 percent increase in Viacom’s stock price since its ebb at the end of August.