{alltv} MTV down, but not done, with scripted series

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NEW YORK — Advertisers attending MTV's annual programming presentation Wednesday saw Jersey Shore's Snooki joking with her pals and then caught Bieber fever from an appearance by the teen idol.

But the channel's talent for tapping into the pop-culture zeitgeist isn't translating to another key strategy: developing scripted series that can generate more lasting returns.

So far, a handful of series, including the retrospective drama My Life as Liz (which returns Tuesday) and well-endowed teen comedy The Hard Times of RJ Berger, have earned modest ratings at best, a fraction of the nearly 9 million viewers tuning into Jersey each week.

And MTV's biggest push, Skins, has generated unwanted controversy that won more attention from the press than from viewers. Monday's much-discussed episode, which included a brief glimpse of male-backside nudity, averaged 1.5 million viewers, dropping by more than half from the premiere, which aired after a Jersey episode.

Despite the marketing effort for Skins, "our audience doesn't know we're in this game yet," says MTV programming chief David Janollari. Teens flock elsewhere to watch Glee, Pretty Little Liars and The Vampire Diaries. "They don't turn to us as a destination for scripted programming," he says. "We have to be in this for the long haul. We're at our best when our slate is most diverse."

Undaunted, MTV is focusing on five upcoming scripted series this year, along with a new spring season of Berger:

•Teen Wolf, a remake of the comedic (and iconic) 1980s movie, this time as a supernatural coming-of-age teen drama, to premiere June 5, after MTV's Movie Awards.

•This Is Awkward, about a 15-year-old who everyone mistakenly believes attempted suicide.

•Death Valley, a half-hour zombie comedy.

•Good Vibes, an animated series about two high-schoolers in a California beach town. (MTV also is resurrecting Beavis and Butt-headwith new episodes.)

•I Just Want My Pants Back, based on the novel about twentysomethings on the make in New York.

For years, MTV has crested on fitfully hot reality shows, from The Real World to The Osbournesand now Jersey Shore, 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom. Some became instant hits, only to fade fast. Last year, MTV's prime-time audience jumped 22%, averaging 985,000 viewers a night, as hitless sibling VH1 fell 31%.

But Jersey shows no signs of slowing, hitting record highs last month, and MTV plans a spinoff featuring Pauly D.

"Part of the reason they become compelling is because you put conflict into these shows," and viewers don't mind the contrived situations, says Gibbs Heljun of New York ad firm MEC. So the move into scripted marks merely "an extension of what the brand is; to the viewer it makes no difference whether it's scripted or reality."

But it does, evidently, to protesters who don't mind Snooki's hot-tub cavorting but do object to minors doing teen things such as drinking and having sex.

MTV tried to fuel buzz with a provocative ad campaign and, for the first time, used the TV-MA (for mature audiences) content rating, though it usually targets viewers as young as 12.

"We expected some haters, some controversy," Janollari says, but "the length to which it escalated was, I thought, a little surprising and not all that called for." Still, he brushed off sponsor pullouts — "I don't believe any ad dollars have been lost" — sparked by protests from the Parents Television Council, which called the show "the most dangerous show for children that we have ever seen."

Says Janollari, "All that matters for us is our audience responded to the show."