MTV Lines Up New & Returning Shows

NEW YORK: Nine new shows and five returning series round out MTV’s 2009 programming slate, including The Hills coming back for another season without star Lauren Conrad.

MTV, which has more top ten shows for the 12-to-34 set than any other network, has greenlit the one-hour daily, live entertainment series The Alexa Chung Show (working title). Hosted by British TV personality and model Alexa Chung, the program will include celebrity guests, musical performances and the best of the web, using Twitter to enable audience interaction. The Buried Life follows the real-life adventures of four young men on a quest to prove that anyone can do anything, covering everything from kissing Hollywood starlet Rachel McAdams to getting in the Guinness Book of World Records. Also greenlit by MTV, DJ and the Fro, an animated series; The Stylist (working title), a reality series about junior styling assistants; Ultimate Parkour Challenge, a sports competition; and Popzilla, a sketch show satirizing pop culture. Other projects include Pranked, a weekly 30-minute show of the very best pranks pulled straight off the Internet; Gone Too Far, a series of one-hour episodes, each with a unique protagonist who has a serious addiction and needs help; and Disaster Date, a hidden-camera show about disastrous blind dates.

Returning to MTV are The Hills, back for a fifth season featuring Heidi, Audrina, Spencer, Brody, Stephanie, Lo and Justin Bobby; Rob Dyrdek’s Fantasy Factory, following the capable entrepreneur with a comically offbeat way of realizing his own fantasies; and Nitro Circus, centered on the freestyle motocross rider Travis Pastrana and his crew of action-sport athlete friends. Mario Lopez will be back for another round of hosting duties on Randy Jackson Presents: America’s Best Dance Crew, where groups battle it out for dance supremacy. And Rev Run and the rest of the Simmons clan head back into the spotlight with a sixth season of Run’s House.

"There’s a palpable generational shift in attitudes that’s informing a new point of view as we develop content and the brand," said Tony DiSanto, the head of programming for MTV. "The change in our audience is reflected in new formats, tonal voices and storytelling cadence. Millennials have a great sense of optimism and are filled with a ‘can do’ spirit that’s infused into all areas of their lives. Just as we’ve shifted with our audience in the past, we’re now embracing a new brand filter…one that inspires us to break boundaries, bust our mold and reinvent."

"Change is in MTV’s DNA and this generation is demanding their own MTV," added Stephen Friedman, the general manager of MTV. "Because they expect more of themselves—they also expect more of us. Whether it’s escapism, aspirational reality or comedy, they’ve demanded that we raise the bar. That’s what Tony and his team have done with our new slate of programming."