...Jersey Shore

Well we all knew it would come to an end, and the end is near. Jersey Shore season 5 will be the last season, at least with the current cast. I am sure they will get a whole bunch of new wannabe celebrities ready to make asses of themselves for an extended 15 minutes of fame. The current cast however will be getting spin offs, yay... We already know Pauly D is getting his own show and Snooki and JWOWW are getting a show together. I am sure soemhow there will be a crappy show for The Situation and an abusive show for Sam and Ron. Poor Vinny may actually have to go back to college...HAHAHAHA. Anyway the current cast is making $100,000 an episode so a new cast would just be cheaper, fresher, and the producers would not have to make them stay inside because everyone on the shore would not know who they were, unlike the current cast. While I am giving this news a Digit Up I am already dreading the new Jersey Shore with the new cast. Oy.

...Snooki

There has been a lot of talk about Snooki recently for going to college...Rutgers. Though she did not enroll she did make a commencement address. The whole hubbub over it was that she was paid $32,000 for her address while Nobel Prize winning novelist Toni Morrison was paid $30,000. To be fair...Snooki is more relevant. She also has to split the money between her managers and opening act. Her money also came from a student run committee while Toni's money came from the school. She did not do much either. She spent an hour answering questions, teaching students the signature fist pump and styling a student's hair in her "pouf" hairdo. She also introduced her father, who was in the audience wearing a "Papa Snooki" sleeveless T-shirt. When she was asked what her advice was for students she said: "Study hard, but party harder." This is something that most college students already know. If you are upset with any of this too bad. Blame society and culture. She is a minor "celebrity" and she is here to stay, in fact I see her staying power lasting longer than most of her cast mates. She is just taking whatever she can get while her 15 minutes are still ticking, and I am okay with this. I am giving Snooki a Digit Up.

...Jersey Shore

Just when I thought that maybe this was going to be the last season of Jersey Shore... MTV has renewed their hit show for a 4th season. With super high ratings they are seeing a goldmine here. For the 4th season the gang is leaving the Shore and heading to Italy. I have no clue how this is going to work out for them or for Italy. I see them maybe hooking up with random Italians or American tourist. It sounds odd thinking about it. For sure though it will probably be a huge hit because people just cannot get enough of them..really they just cannot get enough. I will just give it a Digit Up because for a few month they will be out of America which will make it harder for us to hear about them.

...Skins

So MTV has a new show, that I am not watching, called "Skins". It is based on a British show of the same name. Basically it is about high school teens acting badly. Drugs, sex, rock and roll, parties, sex, etc. Advertisers have been pulling ads left and right; Wrigley, Taco Bell, General Motors and maybe more to come. The Parents Television Council hates this show with a passion calling it "the most dangerous show for children that we have ever seen..." They also think the show is boarder line child pornography, since some of the actors are under 18. Even some within MTV are bickering over the show and think that maybe the show should have never made it to air. Anyway the show is here and it received 3.3 million viewers for its 1st episode, major numbers for cable television. I remember when Jersey Shore aired. MTV lost sponsors and people wanted the show cancelled. now we are on season 3 and the stars of the show have become a part of pop culture, household names, and millionaires. So all of the backlash over this show is just going to help it get more viewers. I am giving MTV and Skins a Digit Up. I am sure this show will become something very popular.

...MTV

MTV may have dropped the music from its lineup, but the ratings did not follow. The ratings are actually up this year. Not since 1999 have the ratings jumped to much. The show leading the ratings surge, of course, is Jersey Shore. Teen Mom also helped. With these reality shows helping bring MTV back from obscurity you know that there are more to come. Some thought that when the hit show "The Hills" went off the air that MTV would possibly be in a ditch for a while, they were wrong. Along with their reality shows bringing in ratings, even the VMAs were up this year. I am sure people wanted to see what Lady Gaga would wear and who Kanye West would interrupt. Meat dress and no one. All in all this is good news for the viewers, bad news for the music lovers. Although if you really love music you stopped watching MTV in 1992. MTV gets a Digit Up.

...MTV

MTV is giving 2 people who helped make their recent reality show franchise HUGE a show of their own. Lauren Conrad from Laguna Beach and The Hills and Pauly D from Jersey Shore. First let us talk about Lauren. Lauren's new show is a reality documentary about her new fashion line. It is scheduled to start shooting this October. She left The Hills in 2009 and has been absent from television since. With this new show she will have more control over everything. I am sure it will be interesting, more interesting than it sounds, but honestly I could live without it. I am over her and The Hills. Next there is Pauly D. I am going to make this short. His new show apparently already has a title and a premise. It will be about him and his DJing career. It is scheduled to start shooting within a month. The 3rd season of Jersey Shore has already wrapped up so this made it possible for him to start this new project. I am not looking forward to this show either. I am not interested in what he is doing or who he may be doing it with. I get enough of him and his friends on Jersey Shore. Again I can live without this. MTV seems to be running out of creative juice, typical Hollywood stuff. I am giving MTV a Digit Down.

...Television Salaries

As you may already know I love television, it will be my future means of income some day, some way. I recently read an article about the salaries of televisions top stars in all genres from reality to comedy. Of course Oprah made the most with $315 million, but other salaries were interesting. Along with the salaries the article explained the average rate for a new show is about $75,000-$125,000 per episode, down from what it used to be but still good. Some stars of hit shows are barely making $200,000, such as the stars of "Big Bang Theory". It also explained how 1 veteran star wanted $250,000 per episode and the studio said no, only $200,000. The star would not budge so the studio went with someone else. I, for some reason, assume that the replacement star was William Shatner in the new show this Fall "Shit My Dad Says", but I could be wrong. Anyway, the article was interesting and made me think hard about the work the actors do and who really deserves their pay, and how much they actually make. I think some actors really do deserve more, but due to conflict and whatnot they have to settle for what their other cast members make and they all have to just eat it. That is unless you are Charlie Sheen who will be earning $2 million an episode while his co-star Jon Cryer will be earning $550,000. Maybe I should be an actor of some sort and land on a show. Even reality stars are making big bucks. Kate Gosselin makes $250,000 per episode for "Kate Plus 8" and Snooki from "Jersey Shore makes $30,000 per episode, which in the end will be more than she ever could have made on her own without winning the lottery. I am giving this information a Digit Up, it just inspires me in some odd way. Click here to see the complete list.