After four years dispensing raunchy-yet-useful sex advice to the nation's youth, MTV has decided not to renew the radio show's TV spinoff hosted by the Siskel & Ebert of prophylactics and dysfunctional romance--Dr. Drew Pinsky and Adam Carolla.
It's still not known why the network decided not to pick up the show for another 15 episodes, like it did last year. Ratings for Loveline, although low, hadn't seen any outright decline over the past year. "We were thrown for a loop by the cancellation," producer Scott Stone, of Stone Stanley Entertainment, told Daily Variety.
The network did not immediately return a call for comment on why the show was canned. MTV debuted the show--which was based on a popular Los Angeles radio show--in November 1996, and has since logged 369 half-hour episodes.
Stone Stanley Entertainment may not be ready to give up completely. Stone told Variety he may look into pitching the show as a first-run syndicated series for fall 2001, or look into moving the series to another cable network. The radio show, also hosted by Pinsky and Carolla, will not be affected by MTV's decision.
The TV version--replete with studio audience and cohost Catherine McCord--seemed to lack the unscripted chaos, improvised rants and psychological probing that made the radio show a hit. MTV's version often yielded more harmless questions, less controversy and, subsequently, less interesting fodder for the advice gurus to tackle.
Loveline began on radio in 1983 as the brainchild of deejay Jim Trenton (aka Poorman), who launched the advice show on Southern California's then-fledgling (and now corporate giant) alt-rock station KROQ. Poorman soon teamed up with Dr. Drew, then a med student.
Since then, Dr. Drew has paired with several unqualified jokesters to rail against their teen callers: After Poorman's departure (the deejay filed a $40 million copyright infringement suit against MTV in 1998, claiming he first pitched the idea to the network), MTV headbanger Rikki Rachman teamed up with the doctor, followed by then-KROQ personality Carolla.
Along the way, Loveline grew into a nationally syndicated show distributed by Viacom-owned Westwood One.
Carolla has since parlayed his celebrity into commercials for 1-800-COLLECT and a collaboration with former KROQ colleague Jimmy Kimmel on Comedy Central's beer-swilling, female-objectifying series, The Man Show. Pinsky also has hawked his teen-medical advice on his Website, DrDrew.com, and on CBS' voyeuristic series, Big Brother.