ROAD RULES Returns As The Next Generation Of Interactive Reality TV --New Season Is Greenlit For First Quarter 2007
MTV And Bunim-Murray Productions Introduce Industry′s First Interactive Reality Show: Viewers Can Determine The Competitors In Each Episode By Voting On MTV.com
MTV: Music Television announced the return of ROAD RULES, set to premiere in January, 2007. The new season of ROAD RULES returns bigger and better than ever, as MTV and reality television pioneer Bunim-Murray Productions allow viewers to actually determine and control the outcome of each episode. In the spirit of innovation and a dedication to allowing the audience to deeply connect and interact with MTV′s programming, the channel will put the show into the hands of the viewers, making the new season the industry′s first interactive reality show. Each episode will have all the interpersonal drama and big missions the MTV audience loved from the original series plus the opportunity for viewers to call the shots on who ends up in the elimination game. The new season will air within a week of it occurring on the road.
ROAD RULES has been a show that our audience is extremely passionate about, and by allowing our viewers to choose their own ending, we′re placing the show in their hands and evolving the concept of how to involve the audience like never before," said Brian Graden, President, Entertainment, MTVN Music Channels Group, and President, Logo.
In previous ROAD RULES, we followed the adventures of six 18-25 year olds who travel across the United States in an RV guided by a set of clues. Each episode featured the cast in a new destination, with missions, face-offs and jobs they must complete in order to get to the next location. In the new season of ROAD RULES, the cast will continue to travel in an RV tackling one mission each week, but the rules and the game have changed. Here′s how it goes:
The resurrection of ROAD RULES will find six of the most infamous former ROAD RULES cast members as the initial passengers in the RV. After each week′s mission, the cast will return to home base and the cast, themselves, will nominate the "weakest" male and female for elimination.
Immediately after the show airs, viewers at home will vote which of those two cast members will enter an elimination face-off, like the Gauntlet/Inferno/Duel of previous Real World/Road Rules Challenges, that will air exclusively on MTV Overdrive.
At the same time the viewers are nominating a cast member to send into elimination, they will also vote for that nominee′s challenger from an internet replacement board of potential male and female replacements.
The replacement board will live on MTV.com, and will feature video packages, personal blogs and other stats/background on each potential replacement.
If the current ROAD RULES cast member wins the competition, he/she returns to the RV -- and the cast-mates who nominated him/her for elimination.
If he/she loses, the challenger replaces him/her with the now ex-"Road Ruler" joining the other potential replacements on the internet board where he/she can lobby the viewers to put him/her back in the game. The next on-air episode will begin with a short re-cap of the Overdrive elimination and the re-entry of the victor of the elimination face-off.
ROAD RULES will be based in California for this cycle, to allow the cast to travel to "overnight" locations for a few days to do their mission and nomination; and then travel back to home base. After each mission, the cast will enter blogs, interviews and personal video diaries that will live on mtv.com. Cast members will also record message updates for the mobile content. Viewers will get the opportunity to win the chance to watch the elimination game live along with the cast members and even give pre-game predictions/hopes on camera. Once the elimination is over, the cast takes off on another mission for several days before returning to home base.
"We at Bunim-Murray and M Theory, our new media division, are thrilled to be relaunching ROAD RULES with our partners at MTV," said Jonathan Murray, ROAD RULES Co-creator and Executive Producer. "ROAD RULES was the first reality game to hit the air in 1995, so it seems fitting that 11 years later, it will be the first reality game to go multi-platform."
