VH1 - It's Time to do Better

VH1 Has now assaulted families with Dating Naked, which is just as you might imagine - a “dating” show entirely predicated on the nudity of the contestants – for three weeks now. The episode that aired last Thursday evening contained near-constant nudity, several instances of foul language, as well as twenty scenes/segments containing visual depictions of sexual behavior or activity. And guess what rating VH1 assigned to this program? TV-14. Does this sound appropriate for your fourteen-year-old child? I didn’t think so. The producers of the show like to pretend that it it’s merely a “radical dating experiment,” harmless really. We’re supposed to think Dated Naked is really no different from other dating shows like The Bachelor, when in reality it is a program solely designed to shock and titillate the public into a would-be audience for the program. But here’s where things really get interesting: VH1’s strategy is simply not working. The premiere episode drew a paltry 826,000 viewers. The second episode wasn’t even among the top 100 cable shows of the day. Last week’s episode, despite being up slightly from the previous week, was only the 67^th most watched show on cable last Thursday. Simply put, these are terrible ratings numbers. Last week, the PTC called on McDonald’s to cease its sponsorship of this offensive program, and it’s high time for the family oriented burger brand to stop alienating its own customers. It’s clear now that any sponsors of this program will not even reach any would-be market via this ill-conceived program in the first place. VH1 – it’s time to do better.