CENTRAL CASTING: Some music industry agents were...

CENTRAL CASTING: Some music industry agents were taken aback by phone calls they received last week from a video casting director seeking “outgoing 18-to-24 year old fans” to fill the front, camera-range rows at the sixth annual MTV Video Music Awards, set to air Wednesday live on MTV from the Universal Amphitheatre.

Casting director Jeff Gerrard called about 25 agents, and also placed an ad in the Breakdown Service, a daily casting publication read by agents and managers.

“All types needed,” the ad read: “Rock ‘n’ rollers, punkers, beautiful people, heavy metal types, etc.”

A typical reaction to the ad: So much for spontaneity in rock ‘n’ roll if even MTV has to resort to casting to find the right audience types.

Carole Robinson, MTV’s director of program publicity, confirmed that the channel authorized Gerrard to make “a couple of phone calls” on its behalf to find the right audience types for a planned production number in the show. The confusion arose, she suggested, when Gerrard took it a step further and placed the ad for a production number that was ultimately cancelled.

“At one time we wanted to do at least one number with audience interaction between kids in the front rows and the band,” Robinson said. “We talked to a casting director to make some calls to see who was available if we decided to do this. But then we decided against the interaction on the number.”

Robinson said MTV instead ecided to give away the front-row tickets through radio promotions, mostly through KQLZ-FM (Pirate Radio).

In another MTV note, the channel last week unveiled its nightly, half-hour “MTV News at Night” broadcast. It’s sort of a music-based “Entertainment Tonight,” with dapper MTV anchor Kurt Loder subbing for “ET’s” Mary Hart. The show, which airs weekdays at 8:30 p.m. on the West Coast, specializes in rock ‘n’ roll, entertainment and pop culture feature stories of interest to MTV’s young adult audience.