VH1 programming executive Michael Hirschorn knows just who Cronin and Abrego are: a couple of hard-working creative whizzes who are "absolutely crucial to our success" and who understand what the channel's target audience wants.
"Their shows definitely have a younger feel, a hipper feel than what you see on the networks," Hirschorn said. "They also have a unique ability to capture the imagination of young adults" by executing "TV that's aware it's TV."
"We're for viewers who are hip to the artifice of a lot of television," he explained and later added: "The only sin is to be boring."
The result is either a new-wave approach to comedy and soap opera, as Cronin, Abrego, and Hirschorn describe it, or, as various critics would have it, another nail in the coffin of Western civilization and a ghetto-stereotype slap in the face of black Americans.
That's not where they're coming from, the producers say.
"Cris and I don't have a political agenda. We don't have an exploitation agenda," said Cronin. "We take on a subject matter and make the best show we can about that. So the show's about Flavor Flav and the women attracted to him and the lunacy that ensues from that.
"In the case of Bret Michaels [the star of "Rock of Love"], it's women attracted to heavy metal hair bands and the lunacy that ensues from that," he said.
While "Flavor of Love" drew criticism for its depiction of the rapper's unrestrained romantic life and the sometimes rough-edged women he was choosing among, it's been a top-rated show among black viewers, Abrego said.
"This is reality TV, and those are real people doing real things," he said.
Last October, 7.5 million people tuned in to the second-season finale of "Flavor of Love" to give VH1 its biggest audience ever and adding to the channel's ratings recovery after its overdose of the "Behind the Music" bio series.
