The Hills star Lauren Conrad explains why you don't have to be a teenager, or a stunted twenty-something, to enjoy her MTV reality show. Number 1: It's like Sex and the City, without scripts and things. "But we were four girls who came to L.A., and became friends over time, and friendships were broken." It is also like The Devil Wears Prada. "That was about a girl who works at Vogue. I'm a girl who works at Teen Vogue. I get yelled at a lot. I miss birthdays and dates." And how is it an unscripted program can come off as kind of scripted? "It looks more like it's scripted because of the way they shoot it. There's a lot of editing. They use our stares for dramatic effect. All of us have more expressions on our face now, out of habit."

How far David Letterman has come in his interactions with reality stars since the days when he'd require visiting Survivor castaways to stand in quarantine, disinterestedly lobbing questions about insect-ingestion from a contagion-safe distance of 15 meters. Now, they climb right into the chair next to him, just like real stars!

Fans of The Hills, MTV's probing voyage past young Hollywood's vacant eyes and into the unknown landscape lying just beyond (turns out, the unknown looks a lot like the Beverly Center!), will instantly recognize Audrina Partridge in the explicit photos above links below. One of the show's pack of nocturnal, scene-crawling famepires, Partridge found a replenishing source of the C-list celebrity she so desperately needs to feed on being cast as the fiercely loyal sidekick to head Hills succubus L.C. Conrad.

· In Extreme Fighting Championship: Mogul Edition, Liberty Media head John Malone and a major shareholder in Barry Diller's IAC took Diller to court over Diller's plan to split his company into five not-so-easy pieces. In his opening day testimony, he accused Diller of selfishly referring to their warm-and-fuzzy, communal corporate multi-conglomerate as "his business," and of having mastered the "'fine art' of taking advantage of the corporate jet." There really is a fine art to that, as Diller has been known to order in entire water polo teams when he suddenly develops a midnight hankering for some Italian. [Variety]
· As soon as celebrated fauxteur Brett Ratner finishes shooting on his Imagine Playboy movie (to be released simultaneously in IMAX Bunny-D!), his next project is looking to be a live-action version of '90s comic book series Harbinger. [Variety]

In "support of his Irish roots," the mediocre late-night talk show host (and WGA picket-crosser) will support Proposition 3-17. In case you think that's important: it's not. It's just a Guinness-sponsored petition to make St. Patrick's Day an official holiday. Daly will rally with New Yorkers tomorrow in Herald Square to make it so! Which is completely unnecessary; the Irish don't need special holidays to go around drinking al fresco. [Proposition 3-17]

A hacker infiltrated MTV's computers and accessed data included 5,000 employees' names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and salaries. "We are taking every appropriate action to investigate this incident and to protect you and the company in future," read a companywide email obtained by the WSJ. One-word version: Punk'd!

Catherine Houser, MTV Networks Executive VP for Human Resources, sent an email out to 5,000 MTV employees alerting them that because "the computer of one of our MTVN colleagues was compromised.... files containing some confidential information about you were illegally accessed by someone outside the Company." Hope you weren't using that Social Security number and decent credit rating, sport: "The personal information that was accessed included names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and compensation data." Now some criminal knows how much you don't make! How many of the affected were among the 1,000 permalancers bumped up to staff in January, we wonder? Full email with all the grisly details attached. Pray for rock and roll.

Did the TIMES SQUARE I.E.D. affect the Conde Nasties? Did Anna Wintour make it to work today? Any MTV or Viacom slaves want to weigh in on the confusion and terror that have surely overtaken their studios? Send me your stories of heroism. [Photo: Reuters, who are also headquartered right around the corner from this morning's TERROR.]

The deal isn't official yet, but CollegeHumor and MTV plan to launch a TV show together. In the finished pilot, the Tumblr-popular Jake Hurwitz and Amir Blumenfeld host, rolling clips between skits like the one in the clip below. Sam Reich plays College Humor cofounder Ricky Van Veen. Word has it CollegeHumor insisted on getting online distribution rights and that MTV readily complied.

A NewTeeVee report suggests Viacom and its subsidiaries may be moving closer to licensing content to Hulu, NBC Universal and News Corp.'s Web video joint venture. "We've been talking to them since the beginning, and we like it a lot," MTV exec Van Toffler told NewTeeVee. He described Hulu as "sleek and simple." We hear MTV is as likely to syndicate content on Hulu as it is on Amazon Unbox or anywhere else. Another MTV exec, Courtney Holt, said, "We're really bullish on syndicating our content." $1 billion says they're not thinking of YouTube. (Photo by L.x. Fringes)

To help celebrate the premiere of the The Real World's upcoming Hollywood-set season where the series can abandon the already-flimsy pretense its houseguests are there for any reason other than attracting the attention of personal-appearance agents who find mall-opening star-quality in their ability to fight with and/or fuck their castmates, MTV is throwing The Real World Awards Bash: Roast 'Em and Toast 'Em on March 29. It's an awards show! And a roast! And a...toast! Polling is now open on MTV.com, where viewers can vote for their favorite melodramatic phonecall that messily ended a long-distance relationship, drunken altercation with law-enforcement officials annoyed by the presence of a camera crew, and hot-tub orgy that threatened the reproductive health of all involved. (We're really pulling for the Vegas season's Steven, Trishelle and Brynn three-way for that last category.)

The weekend saw the long-rumored sale of Yahoo's paid music service go through. Rhapsody America, a RealNetworks and MTV joint venture, purchased Yahoo Music Unlimited for an undisclosed fee, paidContent.org reports. Word has it Yahoo plans to supplant the service with a free, ad-supported service. To that end, it has purchased the maker of FoxyTunes, a plugin for the Firefox browser which searches for music online.

Over 1,000 lucky MTV Networks contractors are being converted to staff from their previous freelancer status, we've been told, in a move to appease angry contractors upset over December benefit cuts. "In the HR meeting they had yesterday with the middle- to upper-management peeps that have the honor of conveying this (mostly good) news: They paused early on in their presentation to say, "By the way, this is not about the writing and the Gawker...these discussions have been going on for a long time," an MTV source said. We're sure it had nothing whatsoever to do with all those people chanting in the streets, either. And introduced by a definite article? We've arrived. Congratulations on the benefits, kids. Go nuts at the orthopedist's.
Earlier: Memo: Judgment Day On Permanent Jobs For MTV Freelancers

The time has come for MTV Networks beleaguered slavey permalancers to learn their fate. Brand-new human resources lady Catherine Houser issued a memo an hour ago to the Viacom subsidiary's contractors, announcing they would learn if they were among the lucky group whose positions will be converted to staff jobs, as promised in December. On what basis will a permalancer earn job security and benefits? Among the benchmarks: "The position would be staff if there was headcount." Uhh...what? "The position transcends a specific project or show," is another. Considering that a key issue in the uproar over Viacom's benefit cuts last month centered around the frequent rotation of workers (which made it hard for them to accrue the required time needed to qualify for benefits), it sounds like MTVN has given itself a whole lot of leeway with that one. So you've been an MTVN cameraman for nine years? As far as Viacom is concerned, you only spent four months at a time on Pimp My Ride and Cribs, so you're shit out of luck, pal. God be with you, and also with you and you. Let us know how it goes. After the jump, the memo in full.

Barely a year after its launch, MTV is shutting down Flux TV. The U.K. channel was the network's attempt to bring social media to the telly. Users determined which music videos the channel would broadcast, as well as upload their own media. But alas, the audience, used to sitting back and being fed entertainment, didn't care to lean forward. Which brings us to Current, the San Francisco-based cable channel founded by Joel Hyatt and Al Gore.

Is this what it takes to sate an angry mob of permalancers? JoAnne Griffith, the HR exec who delivered to the cable network's freelancers the news before the holidays that their benefits were being cut, is out. MTV, which was forced to reverse the cuts after a walkout by non-salaried workers, came out with the usual boilerplate on Griffith's departure. (Really, why do they even bother?) "She's been a phenomenal leader and great champion for MTV Networks,""This is a large, complex company, and with JoAnne's great human touch and innovative approach to HR, we continue to set a high bar and strive for the best for you," an internal email sent this morning to MTV employees reads. Irreplaceable? No. Replacement Catherine Houser, "has the people skills, innovative ideas, and passion for our company and its employees that we need in an HR leader." Phew. Email and official release after the jump.

Rarely has an inhabitant of Manhattan's most hipster-ridden neighborhood ever wished for more bustle. In MTV's virtual recreation of the Lower East Side, however, the emptiness can be disturbing. "My earliest explorations were like starring in my own personal version of I Am Legend," writes a Times reporter. "The streets were mostly empty and I found myself wandering cavernous, depopulated simulacra of the Dark Room and the Mercury Lounge." Pictured here, a view of Houston Street, outside Katz's Deli. Last year, Gawker sent its own correspondent to explore the online hipster playground.

MTV will tape a second season of "A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila," their dating show in which the archetypical MySpace whore pretends to be bisexual and eventually "chooses" a suitor to unceremoniously dump shortly after the reunion show tapes. Whether you consider this a huge step forward for mass cultural acceptance of alternative lifestyles or are not in fact currently receiving a paycheck from MTV Networks, it's exciting news. [HuffPo]

Elfin MySpace celebrity Tila Tequila rocked the competitive reality show dating world with MTV's A Shot at Love by adding a bisexual wrinkle to the staid genre. Sadly, all the contestants' valiant efforts at squeegeeing melted chocolate out of their nether regions were for naught, as Tequila revealed that she and chosen contestant Bobby Banhart have already gone their separate ways—conveniently opening the door for another entertaining rutting contest for the hand of the little agave-based party animal:

MTV Networks has signed an exclusive deal with blockbuster producer Jerry Bruckheimer to develop original videogame titles for MTV Games. MTV's parent, Viacom, has aimed for success in the video game industry with a commitment to spend $500 million on game and interactive entertainment within the next two years, but past attempts to break into the gaming world have been unsuccessful thus far. Unlike the purchase of game developer Harmonix, the makers of "Rock Band," a good fit for MTV, a deal with Bruckheimer is full of all the wrong kinds of risk.