America's Next Top Model is getting a grand prize shakeup for its fifteenth season this fall.
ADVERTISEMENT
The CW entertainment president Dawn Ostroff announced Thursday that America's Next Top Model's next winner will receive a cover photo and spread with Vogue Italia instead of Seventeen magazine, The Los Angeles Times reported.
"[Top Model creator Tyra Banks] really wanted to take the series to sort of another level," Ostroff told reporters at The CW's upfront presentation at Madison Square Garden, The Times reported.
While it remains unclear how the new deal with Vogue Italia was brokered, Ostroff credited new America's Next Top Model judge -- Vogue editor-in-chief Andre Leon Talley -- as a major factor.
"When Andre Leon Talley, who is editor at large at Vogue, came on board, [Banks] wanted to really make these models high-fashion models," Ostroff told reporters, according to The Times.
ADVERTISEMENT
"And high fashion, if you are in the fashion business, is Italian Vogue. Anybody who is in Italian Vogue literally makes it in the fashion business, so this is a really big step for the show."
America's Next Top Model's winner had received a Seventeen cover and spread since the show's Fall 2006 seventh season, when the magazine replaced Elle as a sponsor.
"For the last four years and seven cycles, America's Next Top Model has been a fantastic friend (with benefits!) but we both thought it was time we started seeing other people," Seventeen editor-in-chief Ann Shoket said in a statement, according to The Times.
"Seventeen magazine and America's Next Top Model had a very strong partnership for so long because our 13 million readers are their core audience. But like in any relationship both partners need to evolve and keep growing to keep your brand vital."
The CW renewed America's Next Top Model for a fifteenth season in February and it will continue to air in its traditional Wednesdays at 8PM ET/PT timeslot during the 2010-2011 primetime programming season.
About The Author: Christopher Rocchio