MTV Programming boss says network will stick with Skins despite shedding of advertisers and viewers.  Sounds like a sound business decision to me. Actually, David Janollari claims the network has “not lost any advertising dollars on the show” (despite a ninth advertiser pulling its spots from the show). That may be true, in a way. Since many of the advertisers that are canceling spots on Skins are shifting their purchases to other shows. But, the fact is, MTV is airing a show that advertisers and viewers are steering clear of. Obviously, there is not a consumer or advertiser demand for this show.
Says Janollari of critics who worry the show veers toward child porn: “You’re always going to have haters. And MTV is no stranger to that kind of reaction, most recently with ‘Jersey Shore‘ and going all the way back to ‘Jackass.'”  I think that’s called defining hate down.

Meanwhile, the Weekly Standard uses government statistics to dispute the argument that Skins is merely dramatizing what most teens are actually doing while also exposing how ratings are manipulated to artificially prop up Skins-type programming that, in fact, is not in high demand.

From the Weekly Standard:

Hollywoodites further defended “Skins” by
appealing to laissez-faire principles. They are simply responding to
market forces, they claim, adding that if parents don’t like what their
children are seeing on TV they can always turn it off. Viewers should be
able to “choose for themselves whether it is appropriate.” 

This is an old dodge whose main purpose is to
strengthen the left’s deathgrip on television. Hollywood liberals cite
the market to justify everything from lesbian sexual references on
“Glee” to real and open discrimination against Hollywood
conservatives.  Meanwhile, conservatives themselves refuse to challenge
the overwhelming liberalism of the television industry, since it’s
presumably what the public demands. Only when something truly egregious
hits the airwaves do they mobilize in full force.

The result is a game of political whack-a-mole that
leaves the underlying liberal structure of Hollywood intact, while
stopping only the most extreme television offenders–and only
temporarily. Anyone who watches MTV on a regular basis knows that
“Skins” is hardly an anomaly – MTV routinely broadcasts sexually
explicit material, often featuring underage characters. Moreover, when
conservatives attack such shows on content grounds, they accomplish
precisely the opposite of what they seek, bringing more publicity and
higher ratings to controversial shows, and inuring the public to less overtly gross material.

A better strategy is to focus on Hollywood’s
fallacious market argument as a whole. In fact, the market does not
dictate that exploitative shows like “Skins” see the light of
day; rather, advertisers have been gulled by networks run by
politically-oriented executives.  Network executives are not pure
businessmen seeking the broadest possible market – they are motivated
political actors who run in the same circles as the Hollywood liberals
who think they produce “realistic” content. 

Such executives can green-light extreme leftist
fare because they have successfully promoted the fiction that young
audiences are more valuable than broader demographics.  “Skins” is
on air because advertisers have been wrongly convinced that it delivers
the best kind of audience, even if it alienates the vast majority of
Americans. 

GLAAD calls SNL skit “dangerous” to transgender people.  Not sure I agree with them about the sketch (which spoofs those ubiquitous drug company ads) but they certainly have the right to protest program content they find objectionable. It doesn’t make them “haters.”

PETA PRODUCES SEXUALLY-CHARGED AD FOR SUPER BOWL.
The spot is unlikely to actually run and the animal rights group
obviously just wants attention — but is it good attention? I mean
nothing beats cuddly animals when it comes to winning sympathy for an
argument. Why aren’t they going with their ace in the hole — instead of
producing shock spots that probably lose more supporters than they
gain?

ReelzChannel picks up The Kennedys. The political hot potato of a miniseries (from conservative producer Joel Surnow)  finally lands a network — albeit one most people have never heard of.

America’s last surviving WWI vet celebrates 110. Frank Woodruff Buckles, whose birthday was yesterday, will soon be the subject of a documentary called Pershing’s Last Patriot: The Story of Frank Woodruff Buckles, America’s Last Veteran of World War I. Richard Thomas will narrate.