• by Steve Smith , Staff Writer @popeyesm, June 7, 2010

Some optimist in the media industry (are there any optimists left in the media industry?) really feel the iPad is a game-changer. Well, after last night's attempt to watch the MTV Movie Awards across two screens, it is clear that there is one game even the coolest of devices can't change. You still need enough content to fill one screen before you can think of going to two.

Granted, at 51 I am not the target for this show. So, I will have to assume that host comedian Aziz Ansari is crushingly funny in some other context. From send-ups of Avatar to BP tirades, his routines were strained and leaden at every turn. It seemed as if the high schoolers had elected their own class clown to run things, but they were really laughing at him because of something much funnier he had done at lunch one day. I just didn't get it.

Nor was I in the loop for ridiculously over-produced performances by Christina Aguilera and Katy Perry. Silly me. I kept looking for songs, personality and passion in there. To be fair, the show was stopped by the one production number that had wit: when the Tom Cruise/Les Grossman Hollywood producer persona dances the floor off with JLo. And then there was Betty White, who advised special award recipient Sandra Bullock never to wear that low-backed dress of hers backwards. After her bravura SNL performance, Betty's new role in American pop culture is to demonstrate just how bad much of the rest of it is. I know. I am sure I am showing my generational prejudice, but old pros like White and even Tom Cruise appeared to be the only ones who could sell the faux ad libs of an awards show. But I am probably being grumpy.

MTV's attempt to extend the experience to the iPad for a two-screen experience demonstrates how far we still have to go. The brand debuted an MTV News app for both iPhone and iPad last week in advance of the show. Of course, many TV networks have tried to leverage the Web as a second screen to live programming. But the iPad promises to make the experience more compact and usable -- a personal screen that feels as if it should work in parallel to the TV. The iPad app gave users easy access to about 7 or 8 on-site live cams from the show. In advance of the opening, there were cams peeking in on the red carpet. During the show there were cams in the staging areas for celebs and on a backdrop where an MTV host was supposed to be doing interviews as people came off stage. There were also blog feeds and links to some of the trailers and clips featured on the show.

Alas, most of the cams had no real content worth seeing, and the experience felt more like sitting in front of a bank of dead monitors. On rare occasions, a presenter or winner would show up on the interview stage. But mainly the second screen had a lot of dead air. The staging area was mildly interesting as a way to get a glimpse of Sean Combs posing with the insufferable Jersey Shore cast or other celebs who seemed attached to assistants on cell phones.

At the recent OMMA Mobile conference, broadcast executives, including one from MTV, said that they were starting to think about the tablet platform's potential as a live complement to on-air programming. Clearly someone has to think harder about actually programming that second screen. Simply tossing it raw feeds and scraps from the on-air experience makes it feel neither like a complement nor live. Having trailers and clips show up in the app soon after they appeared on-air is a good start. Integrating the Twitter feed or Facebook posts or some other more active social media in with the video experience also would have made for an engaging parallel viewing experience. The real promise of a personal second screen in the living room is that it allows the user to activate, roll-back and enrich what is happening on screen one. But even the second screen needs some light programming hand shaping the experience.