Skins

The show is called “Skins” and it premiered on MTV Monday.

MTV.com describes the show like this: “Take a peek at the wild ride of sex, drugs and friendship that is ‘Skins’…” The Parents Television Council (PTC) has deemed the show the most irresponsible program MTV has done yet.

Wow! Think about that. More irresponsible than Jersey Shore? The Hard Times of RJ Berger? Tila Tequila? If you take a peek at any of the videos of “Skins” that MTV.com provides, you probably will agree with PTC’s accusation.

To add to the one-two-punch of irresponsibility, MTV.com encourages young people to “Answer some questions about the wild side of your life to get your SKINS SCORE, then post your score to Facebook to see who is the wildest out of your friends.”

The show’s premier was huge. It was one of the most “Twittered” subjects, and it’s links dominate the front page of MTV.com, with banners like this where kids can click to see the episode:  (Hmmmmm…. what are they selling here?)

Nielsen Media Research reported that MTV was the most recognized network among young adults age 12 to 34.  This year alone MTV delivered the #1 series across all of television- Jersey Shore, the top two original cable series, and eight of the top 10 cable telecasts (age 12-34). Bottom line: many of our kids are watching this channel, and will be tuning in to this show this week.a

I’m in an airport in Korea right now waiting for my flight home. I just spent the weekend doing ministry here at a US Military base. In my parent workshop last night I chatted with parents about this show, letting them know that this is yet another reason to just block MTV at their house.

After I recover from jet lag… I’ll probably be chiming in a little more about this show and the conversations we can have with our kids who do watch it (because let’s face it… a lot of parents aren’t monitoring this content).