Last year Nielsen, the leading ratings-measurement company for television shows in the United States, rated MTV’s reality series, “Jersey Shore,” as the No. 1 most watched series on cable television. In the winter of last year alone, 9.3 million people tuned in to watch the reality series.
Common plotlines of the show include “The Situation”—one of the leading male characters in the series—going to get a tan, going to the gym, and yes, finding out who Sammi was text messaging.
Jersey Shore outdid non-cable shows such as “The Office,” “Law and Order,” “Modern Family,” and “Grey’s Anatomy” in 2010.
While nothing of substance actually happens on these reality TV shows, each episode is filled with some sort of stimulating, dramatic outburst, often violent or emotionally obnoxious in nature, attracting the emotional interests of young adults, with the same sort of feeling that one derives from watching a car wreck.
One woman, however, believes that these high ratings do not reflect the real desires of today’s generations x, y and z.
In her travels throughout the world, Dollie Darko, the founder of an emerging new television channel for the Internet called Modern Youth Television (MoYoTV), says she’s met thousands of youth who have expressed dismay at the lack of quality television.
“I encountered many young people from different nations: India, Holland, Germany, and the United States, who wanted to know when someone in America would come up with quality television programming for their age group.“ Darko said in an e-mail. “Invariably, the majority of [the young people] were spending more time online watching MTV, because there were no available alternatives.”
So she immediately made herself busy with a huge project to construct exactly that—an alternative.
The product? A list of 28 “socially conscious” programs, which she believes “inform, engage, inspire, and empower young people, to bring out the good in them and let them shine.”
About her hopes for the young people, Darko said, “I’d like the youth of today’s society to be less materialistic and delay instant gratification by focusing more on their futures as responsible leaders of the human race.”
Darko says she can’t disclose the content of her programs because, “People in the media industry steal great ideas and I protect ours religiously,” however, the shows are scheduled to be aired on the website in 2012.
The process of setting up MoYoTV has not been an easy one for Darko, a Ghanian woman.
“Being a woman and black, it hasn’t been easy. Notwithstanding the example of Oprah Winfrey, no one expects a black woman without wide name recognition to launch a television network. Period.” said Darko. “I’ve encountered many people who have tried to discourage me. But MoYoTv is my passion, and I have no time for naysayers.”
