I knew I was crazy! Months ago, I wondered if Obama's victory would change TV. I began the post with "crazy talk time", but now I think I had a point.
The New York Times reports that MTV (of all networks) are flipping the script. For years, they cursed us with tired editions of Real World, the horrifying Road Rules and Real World challenge show, the god-awful rich kids messes. Now, they are actually bringing more positive social shows on their network.
Last fall, after the financial crisis erupted but before the presidential election, MTV executives gathered in New York for meetings to discuss the direction of the network and whether programs like “The Hills,” which chronicles the lives of the young and rich in Los Angeles, and “My Super Sweet 16,” a weekly visit to over-the-top coming-out parties, had trapped MTV in a decadent age that was passing.
The talk wasn’t just academic. While MTV may still be a cultural touchstone for America’s youth, its ratings are down considerably from earlier this decade.
Executives looked at in-house research and the work of William Strauss, a generational expert who gave a presentation to MTV executives last fall, and saw that the country’s young were deeply engaged in the election and becoming more civic-minded.
One point of discussion at the meetings was whether shows about rich young girls were still relevant.
“It was very clear we were at one of those transformational moments, when this new generation of millennials were demanding a new MTV,” said Stephen Friedman, MTV’s general manager, using the term for those born between 1980 and 2000.
In the era that was passing, Mr. Friedman said, “the humor was more cynical, the idea of community seemed earnest and not cool. It’s the opposite now.”
As a result, a new reality program, “T.I.’s Road to Redemption,” shows a troubled rapper helping keep children on the straight and narrow. Nick Lachey, the former boy band star who was married to Jessica Simpson, his co-star on the MTV program “Newlyweds,” is producing “Taking the Stage,” a reality show about a performing arts school in Cincinnati. A finishing school show, “From G’s to Gents,” tries to transform homeboys into gentlemen — or at least get them to cover their tattoos — with the help of Fonzworth Bentley, who was Sean Combs’s valet.They will keep some of their silly rich shows, but MTV is finally getting the word that reality, should be realistic. I am glad that they are realizing this, perhaps MTV will be watchable again within the next year.
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