With a theme of “always on,” Viacom’s MTV made its pitch to advertisers on Thursday night, announcing its summer lineup as well as a new hire to help its “visual storytelling” endeavors.

This week, MTV announced that Bloomberg’s Richard Turley would take the newly created role of SVP of visual storytelling and deputy editorial director at the cable net in an effort to integrate real-time conversations into on-air marketing. MTV’s brands already have a solid standing on social media with their millennial viewers, but the goal is to make sure that relationship connects in a natural way to its TV series and characters (with the help of advertisers). This is similar to Turner’s real-time strategy outlined earlier this week.

MTV’s real-time plan will take the form of brief, pop-culture-relevant videos on the network’s ad breaks. The network has attempted similar social media moments in the past to positive effect, recently when they created a GIF out of Zac Efron taking off his shirt at the MTV Movie Awards and previously with an interstitial for Miley Cyrus after she tweeted that she wasn’t feeling well.

“We want to have an ongoing conversation with the audience in an immediate way,” said Stephen Friedman, president of MTV.

As part of its programming plans, MTV renewed the long-running “Real World” franchise, “Snook & JWOWW” and “Girl Code.” Adding to the network’s schedule include unscripted projects “Slednecks,” a reality series from the producers of “Buckwild” about friends in Alaska, “One Bad Choice,” a based-on-true-stories show about a single decision that ruined someone’s life, and “Beyond Dance,” a competition series for professional dancers. Episodes of new docuseries “9 Days and Nights” will each go behind the scenes in an artist’s life, starting with performer Ed Sheeran with a planned premiere date of June 10.

Successful teen-targeted series “Teen Wolf” will return for season four June 23, with two shows set to debut in July: Rob Dyrdek’s “Snack-Off” competition show and “Finding Carter,” a drama series about a teenage girl who may have been kidnapped when she was a girl.

Get More: MTV Shows

Read more at The Hollywood Reporter and Ad Age.

Brief take: MTV has a younger, and often more engaged audience online, than many cable nets, so the transition from social media chatter to on-air conversations should be a natural one, especially with the addition of drama series that its audience can relate to.

[Image courtesy of MTV]

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