MTV Cancels Skins

I can’t say that I’m terribly surprised by this news. I’ve been expecting to hear that MTV’s adaptation of the popular UK show, Skins, would be getting the axe for months and Deadline finally confirmed it. Skins got a lot of press when it premiered because of its racy content, underage actors and frank depictions of teen sex. The Parents Television Council took up a cause against the show, asking the Feds to investigate the show believing it to qualify as child pornography. This caused a lot of advertisers to pull out. Since the premiere, viewership dropped every week but never got lower than any of MTV’s other scripted shows.

I’ve watched the original Skins, and it was a lot worse than anything MTV could have cooked up in terms of sexual situations. The UK version had nudity in it, which is something you’d never get away with in the US unless you’re on Showtime or HBO. The notion that a TV show could be considered “child pornography” is insulting to the fans of the show and I hope that it didn’t play too big a part in the shows cancellation.

I never watched the new Skins, but I have not heard great things about it. US audiences were familiar with the original and judged the remake very harshly when it premiered. I’m assuming MTV thought it would be a bigger hit and connect with audiences the same way it did in the UK, but something didn’t translate when they brought it over.