Trifecta Clears Off-MTV Duo in 80% of U.S.

Trifecta Entertainment has sold MTV’s two popular reality strips, Laguna Beach and The Hills to stations covering 80% of U.S. households, the company said Friday, Aug. 7.

Trifecta sold the two shows as one package, with stations first airing Laguna Beach’s 44 episodes and then The Hills’ 70 episodes. One-third of the stations – including KDOC Los Angeles, WGN Chicago, KTXA, KRON San Francisco, WDCW Washington D.C., KSTW Seattle, WMOR Tampa and WUAB in Cleveland -- will air the two shows as a weekday strip.
Stations that only acquired the weekend hour will air just The Hills, which will be comprised as two half-hour episodes.

Stations airing the weekly hour include WPIX New York, KYW/WPSG Philadelphia, WLVI Boston, WATL Atlanta and WMYD Detroit.

Finally, some stations will air the shows both as a weekday strip and a weekend hour.

The two shows will launch Sept. 21.

Paige Albiniak

Contributing editor Paige Albiniak has been covering the business of television for more than 25 years. She is a longtime contributor to Next TV, Broadcasting + Cable and Multichannel News. She concurrently serves as editorial director for The Global Entertainment Marketing Academy of Arts & Sciences (G.E.M.A.). She has written for such publications as TVNewsCheck, The New York Post, Variety, CBS Watch and more. Albiniak was B+C’s Los Angeles bureau chief from September 2002 to 2004, and an associate editor covering Congress and lobbying for the magazine in Washington, D.C., from January 1997 - September 2002.