MyNetworkTV and Fox Reality Channel have announced that the cable networks' new Paradise Hotel revival will premiere on Monday, February 4 at 9PM ET/PT on MyNetworkTV before a "steamier" TV-MA version of the same episode airs at 1AM ET the same night on Fox Reality Channel.

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While Paradise Hotel's Summer 2003 first season on Fox consisted of 32 episodes that aired twice-a-week, the show's upcoming second installment will only consist of 16 episodes that will air once-a-week on Mondays.  Original Paradise Hotel host Amanda Byram will reprise her role for the show's second season.

Paradise Hotel 2 will feature a mix of 11 male and female singles living, playing and hooking-up with one another in a secluded resort for the chance to win a cash prize.  As in the show's first season, the singles will have to find a partner of the opposite sex to share a room with, and the contestant left without a roommate at the end of each pairing ceremony will have to leave the hotel.

"We are thrilled to have Paradise Hotel 2 on MyNetworkTV," said MyNetworkTV president Greg Meidel.  "The series, offering a mix of outrageous guests, remote hideaways and compelling twists, is an exciting addition to our Monday night schedule."

Paradise Hotel's original edition allowed home viewers to become new hotel guests by logging onto the show's Fox website and nominating themselves. Two viewers were then brought in-studio and had to win a game where the hotel's current occupants decided (via satellite) which of the two would be the next new guest, with the studio winner literally leaving immediately after the show and flying to the resort to appear on the next episode as a hotel guest.

While new guests will still be brought in for Paradise Hotel 2, they will be cast by the show's producers and viewers won't be able to nominate themselves for the chance to appear on the show, according to network publicists contacted by Reality TV World.

Information about several other key details of Paradise Hotel 2's format -- including how often eliminations will occur and new guests will arrive as well as the cash amount of the grand prize and how it will be awarded -- was not immediately available from the networks.

"The first season of Paradise Hotel proved to be a ratings bonanza that left viewers wanting more," said Fox Reality Channel president David Lyle.  "Our newest original combines the exciting unpredictability of a reality show with the addictiveness of a night time drama.  Fans -- old and new -- will love Paradise Hotel 2 as it offers more drama, passion and manipulation than ever before."

Back in 2003, Paradise Hotel's strong summer ratings performance resulted in Fox executives all but formally announcing their intentions to air a Summer 2004 edition of Paradise Hotel.  However rather than actually doing so, they instead decided to attempt to capitalize on the format's popularity by leveraging it into a new "never-ending" year-round Forever Eden reality series that flopped and was canceled only seven episodes after its Spring 2005 launch. 

Fox later contemplated bringing Paradise Hotel's original format back for another run in the summer of 2005, but eventually decided against it.

MyNetworkTV -- an over-the-air broadcast network that Fox launched last fall after last year's surprise The CW network launch left many former The WB and UPN affiliates (including nearly a dozen Fox-owned stations) homeless -- and Fox Reality Channel, the all-reality digital cable and satellite TV network Fox launched in May 2005, first announced their plans to revive Paradise Hotel back in May.

The Paradise Hotel announcement followed an earlier March announcement in which MyNetworkTV revealed that after seeing its original first-year plan to broadcast American adaptations of foreign telenovelas shows fail to draw viewers, it had decided to stop developing scripted programming of any kind and would instead begin to focus on lower-cost reality television programming. 

Paradise Hotel's new revival will be co-produced by Fox Reality and MyNetworkTV, with both the cable/satellite channel and the broadcast network sharing the show's costs. 

Mentorn USA, the same production company that produced Paradise Hotel's first season, will return to produce new episodes with Dan Barraclough, Richard Hall and David Leach serving as executive producers. 
About The Author: Christopher Rocchio

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