MTV has put out a casting call for their newest shockingly ill-conceived reality show, Model Makers, which will feature young girls being judged on how well they slim down in order to prove their love of the catwalk. So disturbing, but not anything new for reality television, which as of late actually seemed to be pulling back from the precarious brink of MILF Island.

CONTINUED »

Hello from Paris! Your editorial director has been spending the week here and, aside from eating too much chocolate, I've been flipping through the channels. Including MTV, where Run's House is dubbed for broadcast. Except it's not Run's House — it's Ghetto Pasteur, as in "Ghetto Pastor."

Baldwin Hills, the teen-focused reality show that is marketed as BET's answer to Laguna Beach and The Hills, premiered with a respectable (for BET) 1.5 million viewers on Tuesday. As 2007-2008 BET premieres go, the show comes in second place after Keyshia Cole: The Way It Is, meaning troubled R&B stars are more compelling to BET viewers than upper-middle-class kids and their overbearing parents. But how do Baldwin Hills' second season premiere numbers compare to its counterpart at MTV?

CONTINUED »

Since 1981, MTV has refused to allow political advertisements on its airwaves. Rather than accept cash from our nation’s most diseased industry, the network embarked on its own “Choose or Lose” campaign, a glorified get out the vote effort encouraging viewers to register and cast their ballots like a good American should. But all that is changing, effective immediately.

The Viacom network will begin cashing politically-tainted cheques, but only those written by candidates themselves or their parties, not the 527 groups that produce the slickest, and most offensive, attack ads YouTube has ever seen. (Previously, the more interesting MTV properties VH1, Comedy Channel, and Spike TV all took political dollars.)

So what does the about face mean for Election ‘08?

CONTINUED »

• 50 Cent's burning-house drama continues: his ex says he hasn't called his son since their house burned down and authorities found a gas can on the property. [EUR]

• Sharon Stone needs to stop talking. [SR]

• R. Kelly's circus continues. [TMZ]

• Naomi Campbell is going bald. No biggie, I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have any intention of showing her real hair to the public even if she had it. [Bossip]

• This dude from The Real World: Hollywood is even more worse than I thought he was after that one, horrible episode I watched. [NB]

MTV'S ROCKIN' WITH DIDDY While Diddy's Making the Band is one of my numerous few reality show guilty pleasures, something tells me that MTV's new Making the Rock Band won't make it onto the long short list. If Mr. Combs can barely, barely find a successful group in the genre he knows, how in the hell is he going to find a rock band. [XXL]

Inconveniently timed to coincide with the news that a member of 50 Cent's entourage was arrested after whipping a woman with a belt at the rappers mansion, MTV has just announced that 50 will produce and judge a competition reality show on the network, evaluating the contestants on how well they master “skills that took 50 Cent from the streets to corporate America.” Hopefully they won't be required to get shot seven times and then use that as a foundation for their cross-over rap careers. The winner gets a scholarship to an undergraduate or graduate business program. Not mad at the last part.

Will T.I. and 50 Cent develop reality show beef? Oh, who cares.

JUST DESSERTS In a rare moment of creativity mixed with a small dose of social responsibility, the folks at MTV decided to revisit some of the brattiest cast members — including Cee-lo's insufferable spawn — of the hit show, My Super Sweet Sixteen, by sending them off to live with families in remote areas of third world countries. Although, I don't know why they would do that to those poor people in Peru, Thailand, Kenya, etc. Don't they have it hard enough as it is? [Jezebel]

… this morning MTV announced it has greenlit the 21st season of The Real World. It will be filmed in Brooklyn, the reigning home turf of post-teen drama, and broadcast in 13 one-hour episodes in early 2009. No word yet regarding in which neighborhood the attention-seeking hopefuls will reside …

CONTINUED »

Wherein you, the readers, talk amongst yourselves.
In a new study from the Parents Television Council and the very-anti-Viacom group, Enough is Enough, researchers find that BET and MTV show adult content — sex, violence, obscenity or profanity — every 38 seconds and go so far as to call the networks "predatory." Do you agree with this assessment? Do you watch any programs on MTV or BET? Which ones? Do you/will you let your children watch?

• David Paterson is officially the governor of New York. Good riddance, Spitzer. [NYT]

• It makes me sad that kids today don't know what the real Real World was like. Look these fools. [MG]

• LeBron James is the first black guy to grace the cover of Vogue, but the imagery could have been a bit less stereotypical, right? [Racialicious]

• New music from Rihanna. I bet it's Chris Brown's new favorite song. Awwww…. [SR]

• The Game don't stop.

So there I was in my apartment last night, finally getting around to watching Monday's DVR'd episode of Making the Band 4, when a familiar face popped up during the first commercial break. It was Cornel West, and he was actually MTV's artist of the week. MTV's artist of the week feature highlights up and coming artists during commercial breaks and in-between shows. It's highly effective — I bought M.I.A.'s album on iTunes after she was artist of the week. But are kids really going to go out and buy Cornel West's album, which consists of spoken word social and political commentary set to hip hop beats? Probably not, but according to MTV, this week's artist selection was more about honoring black history month than anything else.

When Bill Cosby's rumored hip hop album hits stores, he'll probably be hurt if he doesn't get the same treatment.

H/T to Racialicious for reminding me!

It will be a while before the episode of MTV's My Super Sweet Sixteen starring Quincy Brown, the unofficial stepson of Diddy and the actual son of Kim Porter and Al B. Sure, airs. But rest assured that Diddy allowed no stop to go unpulled for the party, which happened this weekend and featured guests like Lauren London, Bow Wow, Omarion, Chris Brown, Hurricane Chris, Crime Mob, and Jermaine Dupri. No Cassie, though. Rev Run brought little Diggy, who posed on the red carpet with Justin and Christian Combs. I hope they don't corrupt him. More pics after the jump.

CONTINUED »

Yesterday was apparently black music day on TRL with Keyshia Cole (in an intricate cream number), Mario, and Lupe Fiasco, who has apparently recovered from "Fiasco-Gate," in attendance. It was kind of Keyshia to take time out of her dysfunctional, weird, dramatic R. Kelly tour to say hi to the fans in Times Square.