Though it might appear that shows like "Laguna Beach," "The Real World" and "The Hills" have defined young people better than any others, MTV is moving away from high-gloss and into homemade.
In an attempt to reconnect with young audiences that have drifted from the channel recently, MTV will begin to roll out series that showcase the best of the Web, require heavy viewer participation and feature the lives of real teens. While YouTube and MySpace made noise first by trafficking in do-it-yourself media, MTV will now put viewers in the driver's seat by serving teens the entertainment they crave most: the kind they create.
Internet pages about themselves. Video shorts they direct. Sliced and diced bits of movies and TV shows, re-cut into something new.
In an exclusive interview with The Times, Brian Graden, MTV Networks' music group entertainment president, unveiled a different direction for the channel in which MTV acts as the hub for multitasking teenagers.
MTV isn't the only outlet having trouble keeping the young demographic satisfied these days. Over the last year and a half, once-powerful teen magazines, including Teen People, YM, Teen and Elle Girl, have folded.
The key for MTV will be developing shows that will drive viewers to spend time on series-related online games, in Web communities or on cellphones coughing up jokes of the day.
"We can either stay in the mass business,," Graden said, "or we can be in the hyper-specialty business where the shows may not have broad appeal but in the Digital Age would better engage our viewers."
He said that the current series "Scarred" and "Human Giant" are examples of the new strategy. "User-generated content has to become reflected in our programming," Graden said. "Something like 'Scarred,' which tells the stories behind the Web's most gruesome clips of crashes, wipeouts and accidents, "is based on footage that may already be infamous, but it's our own narrative accompanying it."
Going forward, all shows will have a heavy digital component working in conjunction with the show. Casting for "The Real World," for example, will take place entirely online; "My Super Sweet 16," which chronicles extravagant birthday bashes, will soon feature home videos from MTV viewers that will account for "a significant portion of our on-air episodes," Graden said.
The changes arrive as MTV wrestles with its first ratings woes in years. "The Real World" still rules as MTV's top franchise, but ratings for the current 18th season, filmed in Denver, have fallen to its lowest tallies since 2001's 10th season.
The 10 Spot, MTV's signature weeknight10 p.m. programming block, has also lost its footing, drawing an average 454,000 viewers ages 12 to 34 last quarter after peaking in the first quarter of 2004 (when "The Osbournes" and "Newlyweds" were in full force) with 842,000 viewers.
Its recent misfires with critics and viewers have included the Jennifer Lopez dance competition "DanceLife," the "Laguna Beach"-style "Maui Fever" and "TwentyFourSeven," which Times television critic Robert Lloyd noted in his worst-of-2006 essay. The network's fourth newlywed show, "Bam's Unholy Union," and its retooled "Road Rules" also rated poorly.
"I'm From Rolling Stone," in which young journalists competed to work at the music magazine, never had a chance, drawing fewer than 350,000 viewers on average.
The attempts to catch up have already started. The after-show following last month's finale of "The Hills" was a mishmash of media, combining a live studio audience, online instant messaging and a Q&A between the series' cast and home viewers conducted via webcam.
"TRL" ("Total Request Live"), once the network's demographic-defining show, will get a new title and a creative overhaul this summer. Graden said online participation would become essential when the show relaunches (whereas today viewers can still vote by calling in).
Music videos on the channel outside of "TRL" will also get a face-lift, and by summer "a good number of the videos in rotation" will have the viewers' thumbprints on them, Graden said.
Even for a network that prides itself on innovation, the gamble is a big one.
"It's all kind of radical," Graden said, in a tone both excited and anxious.
The new direction echoes Graden's tastes -- he's known industrywide for being gutsy yet mainstream. The bicoastal executive's Santa Monica office is decorated with "Jackass" memorabilia and posters of "Noah's Arc" and "Jacob and Joshua: Nemesis Rising," programs from MTV Networks' Logo, a channel aimed at gay audiences, which he runs as president.
Graden, who previously worked in development at Fox before rising to head of all programming for MTVN's music networks, is also credited with having discovered Trey Parker and Matt Stone, commissioning the then-unknown pair to create a holiday video card that later became the basis for the Comedy Central hit "South Park."
