User blog comment:Paul.rea/Teen Wolf News 072716/@comment-7971816-20160727204713/@comment-4091815-20160727205741

All I know about Shannara is that it's very expensive.

MTV did scripted well. Teen Wolf, Awkward, Faking It are proof that they knew, at some point, how to spot good writing and exploit it well.

The chaos that struck Viacom as television viewing moved sharply away from the TV and on to every other device caught everybody in the business flat footed. As a flagship of a publicly traded company, MTV doesn't really have time to hang around until everything settles out and they figure out how to make money of these new platforms. Their shareholders want results or at least they want something to reassure them that they are moving in a direction toward profits again.

Dumping scripted for what they used to do best is that signal to the markets that everything will settle down and be fine again. It's a false signal but that doesn't matter as long as the stock doesn't sink.

There's also the fact that reality is far cheaper to produce and that means their bottom line improves without them having to do anything but cancel some expensive shows.