BY DC CUEVA
The choice MTV and new channel boss Chris McCarthy made was to send the scripted content it tried out and had little results to its new natural habitat at the newly-launched Paramount Network, and return to what made the channel famous in the first place. That would be non-scripted reality programming that tailored to its younger Millennial audience, as well as relaunch TRL as both an on-air and digital franchise.
Think about the past year: bosses upped the ante on The Challenge in making two of the three trilogy seasons' final prize pool a cool $1 million and launched a Pros/Stars spinoff series. They relaunched the Shore franchise after years of overseas success and used the massive audience of the return of the Jersey Shore originals and Teen Mom to help launch Ex On The Beach, Siesta Key and two of the shows that are our focus here.
One of them helped to spur that Family Vacation we just saw down in Miami, while the other helped launch this renaissance. And both are the subject of this installment of Before They Were MTV Stars, where one person who appeared on both of those shows has had something to do with this success.
