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Wednesday, January 05, 2005

Road Rules may be over after its thirteenth season

In an astounding development, Reality Blurred has posted that Road Rules may be at the end of its run. Citing an anonymous email from a producer of the shows, they say they Road Rules is postponed indefinitely. So, what's the deal? The following is a long, complicated history of the turmoil the show's been in. Skip if you please.

Well, if you are a reality television fan and have been following the saga that's these two shows, you know how these two shows The Real World and Road Rules have been so close to being cancelled in the past. In 1999, when Hawaii and Semester At Sea were being filmed, Bunim-Murray Productions announced that only two seasons of each show would be produced and then production would be stopped. There was buzz everywhere and it was pretty much official.

So, flash to the premiere of Hawaii and the incident with Ruthie being sent to the hospital. There was a lot of buzz around Hawaii with rumors fluttering about Ruthie's alcoholism and her leaving the house. So when Hawaii consistently brought in huge ratings, the decision was made not to officially stop the shows at season 10.

So, Real World was pretty much saved. Up to Paris, each successive season of the Real World pulled in larger ratings. However, Road Rules was a struggling show. Debuting in 1994, Road Rules was produced on a bi-yearly schedule. Once the decision was made to cancel both shows, BMP put Road Rules on a yearly production schedule. If you remember Maximum Velocity Tour, it was a heavy departure from the regular Road Rules fare. BMP played up the game show element of the show and strayed away from the inter-cast development.

Since then, Road Rules has gone through a number of stunning developments. Most notably, the vote-off rule, which was introduced in its 10th season (The Quest) has heavily changed the make-up of the series. So, Road Rules has been on a long journey since then. By all accounts, BMP was heavily pleased with the series when South Pacific turned out some of the most memorable castmembers since its early years. Producers even used the same casting producers to cast the San Diego season.

So that brings us to now. In the past, there have been times when the locatiion of the next Road Rules has been announced along with Real World. So when Austin was announced as the 16th season location, this raised a few eyebrows. Bunim-Murray Productions has recently gone through an expansion and they are changing things up a bit there. Anyone close to production can tell you that. However, the fate of Road Rules is still up in the air. Only an official announcement will confirm or deny its cancellation.

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