Viacom's price targets get cut -- should you automatically avoid the stock?

Viacom (NYSE: VIA) got handed a nasty downgrade last week. Michael Morris of UBS is quite worried about how Viacom will perform during the awful, awful advertising environment (seriously, it's so bad I couldn't just use a single awful). He cut his target price from $27 to $18. Also, David Joyce of Miller Tabak reduced his target price from $29 to $25. Well, at least he's more optimistic. As of this writing, shares of Viacom were around $17.68.

So, there you go, you've got the opinions of two analysts. Are they right? I'm afraid they just might be. It seems to me that Viacom could be going lower before it heads higher. Of course, the same could probably be said for many, many stocks. It's just the way things are. A lot of pundits had warned that estimates were too high, and now that reality is starting to set in. Plus, Viacom is having well-known issues with growth at cable networks such as MTV. Add to that problems with DVD sales and movie slates, and you've got the overall negative thesis.

You also have to remember that the media industry has been a pretty tough sector to make money in. It seems like Wall Street just doesn't respect these stocks. Look at long-term charts of Disney (NYSE: DIS) and Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), for example. Viacom, as well as those two, has arguably been cheap for a very long time, and its collection of assets should be valued with higher multiples. Simply put, there hasn't been a lot of appreciation for these stocks over the years. I've owned Disney since 1998 and can attest to this fact.