The programming gurus at MTV are basing their profit-making strategy on the viewer demographic of 12 to 34 – as if there’s no difference in maturity level between 12 and 34. MTV’s brand of sensationalistic "reality TV" was easily demonstrated on the night of October 5, when they aired a prime-time marathon (from 7 pm Eastern to 1 am) of their hour-long documentary series called "True Life." Just the episode titles were jaw-dropping.

1. "I’m Out."

2. "I’m Polyamorous."

3. "I’m Bisexual."

4. "I’m Changing My Sex." (This ran twice in a row.)

5. "I Work In The Sex Industry."

The MTV Awards once again earned its reputation for tawdry entertainment by broadcasting Jack Black praying to the devil. The comedian, who was hawking a heavy metal video game called Brütal Legend, asked the "Dear Dark Lord Satan" to bless the rock star nominees with "continued success in the music industry."

Black appeared sporting a mullet, wearing a muscle suit, and carrying a larger-than-life battleaxe. While the Satan worshiping was obviously a gag, Black has previously made a point of offending Christians - going so far as to appear as Jesus in a video protesting Proposition 8, the California constitutional amendment that defined marriage as between a man and a woman.

Cable television is a minefield of unspeakable raunch for children, who, like it or not, freely roam the hallways of this medium at night. The Parents Television Council has issued its list of the Top 10 Worst Cable TV Shows for Kids. One hopes that someone out there is shocked.

Leading the list is Comedy Central and its vile celebrity roasts. These mean-spirited and vile knockoffs are nothing like the side-splitting, kid-because-we-love Dean Martin roasts of the Seventies.

August’s roast of Joan Rivers was the ugliest yet. Rivers came out on stage holding hands with six little kids of different nationalities and joked that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were having a yard sale. She shoved the kids and snapped: "All right, kids, go make jewelry!" Behind the kids' backs, she flipped a middle finger and said: "I hate children."

The Los Angeles Times Calendar section on Thursday accidentally listed MTV's hit series "Jackass" as airing on MSNBC at 7 and 10PM.

7 and 10PM just so happen to be when "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" replays on the West Coast.

Innocent mistake or Freudian slip?

You decide as you read what Andrew Malcolm deliciously reported Friday:

MTV specializes in the kind of "reality show" that would have you believe all young Americans are spoiled, profane, and crazed about alcohol and sex. From its raunchy spring-break coverage to its "Real World" and "Tila Tequila" reality shows, MTV is constantly sending a message to young people that absolutely everyone is enjoying or seeking casual sex, and never are there negative consequences beyond the occasional break-up.

So it was shocking this summer for MTV to air a reality show called "16 and Pregnant." MTV, airing a show on the very real-world consequences of the hook-up culture? Jaws dropped across the spectrum of MTV critics, from the moralists who decry the promotion of premarital sex to the health experts and "safe sex" promoters who want every sex scene to come with a contraceptive message.

The six-part "16 and Pregnant" series examined the hardships undergone by six impregnated teenage girls. It illustrated how childbirth and motherhood radically changes a young girl’s life, and explained what Barack Obama meant when he clumsily said he wouldn’t want his daughters to be "punished with a baby."

Some statistics: According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 86 percent of mothers who give birth out-of-wedlock are teenagers. According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, only 40 percent of teenage mothers ever graduate high school; two-thirds of families begun by an unmarried teen mother are poor; and “Virtually all of the increase in child poverty between 1980 and 1996 was related to the increase in nonmarital childbearing.” So what does MTV do? It shows how cool teen pregnancy is with a new reality series called “16 and Pregnant.”

Airing this summer, the show normalizes teenage pregnancy, following  pregnant sixteen year old girls throughout their pregnancies and after they give birth.

MTV really knows how to stage the stunts that generate big publicity for their major events. In 2004, MTV produced the CBS Super Bowl halftime show where Justin Timberlake exposed Janet Jackson’s breast. In the fall of 2003, Britney Spears kissed Madonna suggestively at their Video Music Awards program. They’ve done it again with the 2009 MTV Movie Awards show. Comedian Sacha Baron Cohen’s dressed like an angel and his flying over the audience during the live show went badly awry. He crash-landed in the audience and ended up upside down with his bare buttocks exposed right in the face of the rapper Eminem.

The seeming perfection of this gross-out embarrassment, complete with Eminem wearing a microphone, having a swearing fit, and walking out of the theater, caused some to smell a calculated stunt. Cohen seemed to be wearing a thong so the gross-out didn’t include an upside-down whole-crotch hangout. So was it a fake? Scott Aukerman, head writer of this sorry program, admitted they staged this disaster. "That's all anyone wants to talk about, so let’s get it out of the way. They rehearsed it at dress and yes, it went as far as it did on the live show then."

Rock stars are rarely controversial for acting like rock stars. A decadent lifestyle of sex, drugs, and alcohol abuse are the expected menu. In our upside-down popular culture, rock stars create controversy only when they advocate an alternative lifestyle – when they wear purity rings and abstain from sex until marriage.

Some dream of being rock stars just for the selfish fantasy of organizing an assembly line of casual sex partners. In the minds of those with no moral brake on their sex drive, rock stars favoring abstinence are wasting a national resource, akin to monks pledging a vow of poverty while living inside a gold mine.

Last September, the Disney-boosted teen rockers known as the Jonas Brothers were a rich target for mockery at the MTV Video Music Awards for their purity rings. The emcee, a British comedian named Russell Brand, sneered that the Jonas Brothers were "a little bit ungrateful because they could have sex with any woman they want. That is like Superman deciding not to fly and go everywhere on a bus." Tee-hee, and all that.

The pagans blogging at The Wild Hunt report that the MTV program True Life is looking for a few good teenaged Wiccans. They’re concerned that "Far too often naive (or greedy) Pagans have been exploited in this sensationalist and bottom-feeding genre, providing snarky laughs to a growingly cynical audience." But MTV is hardly a convention of religious broadcasters who would scorn the pagans. It’s more likely they’d enjoy watching a few Christian parents blow a gasket while they film it. Here's a snippet of the request for subjects: 

…we are casting for an upcoming episode of the award-winning series True Life. For this episode, we are looking for people who are in the process of converting to Wicca, or who have recently converted. We are focusing on how parents deal with these changes, and how it affects relationships. People should email their situations to Parents@mtvnmix.com with their name, age, location, phone number, and recent photo of themselves I would really appreciate it.

"If U Seek Amy." If you repeat that phrase a few times, it will sound like an all-too familiar reference to sex. This clever little phrase is the title of Britney Spears' new hit, and it's stirring up some controversy.

In case you're still a little lost, it clearly sounds like she is saying, "F**K me," and in the event you still think the song is about a girl named Amy, observe how the phrase makes no sense in the context:

Chorus:

Love me hate me
Say what you want about me
But all of the boys and all of the girls are beggin’ to, If U Seek Amy

Love me hate me
But can’t you see what I see
All of the boys and all of the girls are beggin’ to, If U Seek Amy

Hip Hop R&B artist Ne-Yo joined MTV VJ Lyndsey Rodrigues on TRL to co-host today.  Prior to performing, Ne-Yo was interviewed about a song on his new album titled "When You're Mad." Rodrigues asked the singer/song-writer the last time he was mad himself.

RODRIGUES: When's the last time you got fired up?

NE-YO: Last time I got fired up?...you know what got me mad? When I watched McCain's speech.  That got me mad.

RODRIGUES: I'm not going to get into it.

Rodrigues quickly steered away from politics and moved the show back to the music.  Perhaps after Russell Brand made his views known to the MTV audience, another onslaught of complaints was the last thing MTV wanted.

However, Brand gained more notoriety than ever since the Video Music Awards and has apparently been asked to return next year. Up and coming entertainers are not necessarily looking for friends but the bottom line.  It should be no surprise entertainers are  looking to throw political bombs now.

Ne-Yo may be looking to season his new album release with some political controversy, but after Brand's reprehensible behavior at the VMA's, Ne-Yo was not going to top that.  At least MTV was not going to let him.

Associated Press writer Jake Coyle offered a TV reviewer's take on MTV host Russell Brand's Bush-bashing on Sunday night. He called it "candor" and mocked the idea that a host should steer clear of suggesting the president's retarded. He thought the "import was a welcome change." Is he really a change? Brand seems to epitomize MTV, which glorifies every excess:

After all, Brand has built his image on his candor and edginess. He's well-known across the pond as a standup comic, TV show host and radio DJ — but more so as an outlandish and hedonistic figure who speaks unabashedly about his prior drug and sex addictions.

Brand was especially "unabashed" about mocking teen stars who've taken a stand for abstinence before marriage:

Again and again, Brand — a confessed former sex addict — poked fun at young sex and abstinence. Speaking of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's daughter's boyfriend and would-be father, Levi Johnston, Brand sympathized with him: "That is the safe sex message of all time. Use a condom or become a Republican!"

The MTV Video Music Awards show was as predictable as watching Keith Olbermann or Chris Matthews do their broadcast. Other than celebrating its 25th anniversary and giving Britney Spears a possible opportunity for a comeback, the program was chock full of insults towards conservatives by the show’s emcee, U.K. comedian Russell Brand.  As a former MTV staffer, I was surprised by the selection of such an obscure individual to emcee the program.

By the audience reaction, Brand knew he was considered a “nobody” here in the United States, so his immediate course of action was to go political to try and endear himself to the MTV audience:

“OMFG” is text-speak for the unspeakable. It's also the tag line for a new ad campaign aimed at teens and featuring a jumble of sexual situations, including teens undressing each other and two girls kissing. The campaign blitz is appearing in print and television, all aimed at drumming up eyeballs for the CW network's teen-themed soap "Gossip Girl."

For the uninitiated, “OMG” translates to “Oh My God” in the language of email and text messaging. The addition of the “F” means … well, it’s the word that can cost broadcasters a hefty government fine if someone actually says it on TV.

Now, of course, executives at the CW could never admit that they were actively targeting teens with such a "provocative" ad. Nor would they ever admit they were intentionally dodging an FCC fine by using the letter "F" instead of the unspeakable word. Nor would they ever consider that "F" used next to "G," which stands for "God" would be blasphemous. In fact they've gone out of their way on these subjects. But reality has a way of well, keeping it real.

Update/Clarification (Jan. 24): Ocean MacAdams of MTV News responds (see bottom of post)

Politico's Ben Adler has a story today about Rock the Vote submitting a friend-of-the-court brief in favor of overturning a law requiring voters furnish photo identification before casting a ballot:

Planned Parenthood Golden Gate (PPGG) has unveiled what it calls an “edgy” TV and radio campaign that “focuses on the importance of practicing pregnancy prevention and safer sex.”

Except that the words “pregnancy” and “safe sex” are never spoken.  And the pitch man in the “Mile High campaign” is flamingly gay. The TV ad is being run on MTV, VH-1, Comedy Central and TLC, and the radio ad is running on KMEL-FM, a San Francisco station.  See if you can find the purported "sexual health" education messages in the ad. 

Here is the text of the commercial: (click here to see the video)

Here's something you don't see every day: A rapper condemning MTV for, of all things, promoting homosexuality. It makes a little more sense, though, when you realize that he only did so to shift the blame from the increased criticism that rap music has come under following the Don Imus "nappy-headed-hos" incident.

In an interview with Complex magazine (h/t RightwingSparkle), rapper Jeffrey Atkins, aka Ja Rule, blasted both MTV and homosexuality. I've taken the liberty of removing his numerous vulgarities:

Yeah, they got my man Doug Morris under fire and s---, they got him going down to go speak to Congress about hip-hop lyrics, are you f---ing serious? There's a f---ing black kid right now about to get 25 years for having a fight with some white kids over hanging the nooses over the white tree, lets get to that. Let's get into s--- like that, because that's what's tearing up America, not me calling a woman a b---- or a hoe on my rap songs.

Another episode of "NewsBusted" has arrived! Topics in this episode include Nancy Pelosi, Osama, Larry Craig, South Carolina prostitutes, MTV and more.

Note: You can subscribe to “NewsBusted” if you click the little takeboard icon. That way, you'll be automatically notified via email any time we post new shows. Click here for the show archive.

It's not very surprising coming from the same guys that tried to scare young voters in 2004 with fears of the military draft, but Human Events online producer Ericka Andersen takes a look at the left-wing, anti-war in Iraq slant of MTV.com's political news section:

Not that I expected MTV to be fair and balanced but this is ridiculous. I checked out the MTV site after seeing their recent commercials featuring two musicians strumming along to Spanish music in a cool setting to cool music with two cool looking Latin folks. But the wordless tone is clearly MTV's embrace of illegal immigration. Though they did provide different viewpoints to choose from on the immigration debate on the politics section of their web site, the same could not be said for coverage of the Iraq War.

When you enter the think:Politics section of MTV.com, you can choose to to click Iraq: Take a Stand. Then, there are two sections -- one for if you support the war, one if you do not. The section labeled "If you are against the war" features six different websites and resources to choose from. The section labeled "If you are for the war" lists only one.

MTV is gearing up for its 2008 presidential coverage and presenting an opportunity for young people interested in television journalism. Please take advantage of this opportunity and ensure that the right gets some representation in the program:

Citizen journalists! Visionaries! Vloggers! This is your year. Now more than ever, the presidential candidates know that every vote counts, and that local campaign stops can be covered and spread worldwide by anyone with a cell phone. You have power.

As part of our collaboration with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Knight News Challenge, MTV is looking for one aspiring reporter from every state and Washington, D.C., to be part of our Choose or Lose team. We know that you're already hitting the streets and doing this work. So now we're giving you the chance to join a national team of journalists in covering this unprecedented election year from a youth perspective.