The 2014 MTV Video Music Awards had Sunday night pretty much to itself. That helped MTV win the night but the ratings were still a huge disappointment compared to last year — down a full 18%. Last year 10.1 million tuned in. Only 8.3 million tuned in Sunday. Could this be a backlash over Miley Cyrus?
If you recall, it was in 2013 when 10.1 million tuned into the VMAs to watch Miley Cyrus perform her infamous twerking routine complete with a foam rubber finger. The performance was grotesquely hyper-sexual and designed to be so.
Sporting the body of a 14 year-old boy and hair done up to simulate devil horns, Cyrus pranced around the stage, stuck her filmy tongue out at the audience, stuck her unremarkable fanny in Robin Thicke’s face, and used the foam finger to suggest she had a penis.
Cyrus earned plenty of attention and at the time MTV tried to spin it as cutting edge, but there’s a good reason the network made a big deal of announcing before this year’s show that the off-putting stunt would not be repeated.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.