Fans of The Real World have been nervously twiddling their thumbs, awaiting an announcement that MTV had renewed its longest-running reality show for a 31st season. The aging reality show, which premiered in 1992 (before many of its fans were even born), has been slumping in the ratings in recent seasons, causing many to fear that MTV would soon cancel it. The network announced months ago that it had renewed ‘Real World’ spin-off The Challenge for another season (click here for details on that), but had remained suspiciously mum on the fate of ‘The Real World.’
Today, a casting director for Bunim-Murray announced that they are currently casting for ‘The Real World 31,’ and, although the network hasn’t released any info on the new season, the fact that they are casting at least confirms that there will be another season after all!
Bunim-Murray will be holding casting calls all over the country in the next few weeks. They will be setting up casting sessions in bars in Atlanta, Chicago, Miami Beach and Philadelphia (to name just a few), looking to find the next Johnny Bananas. (To see a full list of their upcoming casting call locations, click here.)
The recent seasons of ‘The Real World’ have included some type of twist. On last season’s “Skeletons,” someone from the roommates’ past came to cause havoc for them. The season before, on “EX-Plosion,” an ex of each roommate came into the house. Bunim-Murray’s former chairman, Jon Murray (who stepped down from the company in April) did a Reddit AMA earlier this year in which he stated that future seasons of ‘The Real World’ will probably include some sort of twist.
“Hopefully the twists keep the show interesting without taking anything away from the core DNA of the show which is about a diverse group of young people learning from each other,” he said.
The twists don’t seem to be helping the show’s ratings. For instance, “Skeletons” premiered last year to sub-par ratings. (The first episode clocked in at 0.65 million viewers, as opposed to the 1.94 million viewers the first episode of 2011’s ‘Real World: San Diego’ season drew.)
No premiere date or filming location has been released yet.
(Photo: Bunim-Murray)
9 Responses
The first show was the best. After that they went down hill quick. You got away from picking everyday young high school or college graduates. Some beauties, some not so beauty. Some blonde hair blue eyed muscled up athletes. Some not so athletic. Some hippies…..etc….Now about all you pick are uninteresting people who dont really have any ambition in life but to screw, gossip, fight and show no signs maturity. I would start watching again if your picking process got back to what it focused on. Young men and women who were a mix of nice looking and not so much. Some blonde haired blue eye athletes with goals. and other cast members who have goals but still like to get down and have a good time but knows when to have respect.
Okay, so I totally filled out an application MONTHS ago because I was bored and stumbled upon MTV’s Casting page. Randomly got an email a few weeks ago about being selected to move forward in the process, answered 50+ more questions about myself, my background, my family, how I handle conflict, etc – and then last night received an email asking to come in for the Casting Call in Minneapolis next Wednesday. Ha! I’ve never actually seen The Real World before, but I instantly thought of you, Ashley! Any tips? 🙂
The only way this show will be watchable is if they go back to casting interesting, unique people with good stories to tell BEFORE moving into the house where sex & alcohol & fights are in the mix. The original NOLA, Boston & Hawaii [to name a few] are some of the best seasons because they had real people with good stories to bring to the table. Not a bunch of idiots trying to jumpstart their careers.
Um they could cast intelligent and interesting young people. That might be worth a shot.
I hope MTV cancels the Real World just like Fox did to American Idol earlier this year cancelling it after next season!!
This was an excellent show in the beginning…maybe up until the first Vegas. That show everyone was sleeping with each other. It just got worse. I’ll never forget Julie, Puck, Irene, Tonya and others from the early years. Now it’s all about hooking up and stupid, vapid fighting.
How about returning to the original concept for season 31, and if that fails, too, then the show will have truly jumped the shark as critics have been saying about nearly a decade now.
fake show the original concept was lost after season 1, than it was all about get on for the 15 minutes and easy money.
No thanks. I stopped watching years ago when the show stopped being about real people & just became an orgy of sex and slap fights between good looking psychos.