Our slags over at ladysite Jezebel caught Lauren Conrad of "The Hills" "reality" show semi-fame rocking the name necklace a la Carrie Bradshaw. Proof positive of our "The Hills" is the new "Sex And The City" theory. What's more, we hear from inside MTV that "The Hills" is "the only thing holding up the channel at the moment. The online ratings/# of streams are THROUGH THE ROOF. But everything else is in the shitter. All of the programming meetings are about doing 'triage' on the programming schedule/lineup, and how 'America's Next Top Model' marathons are helping to 'stop the bleeding.'"

Perhaps you have noticed that I am obsessed with the MTV "reality" show The Hills. It seems like a lot of you are, too! And, like, every celebrity magazine, and even Real Newspapers, are too. At first, it sort of seemed like a joke, like a so-bad-it's-good sort of thing. We were only being ironic as we watched! But now we think there's something not at all ironic at work here.

The channel that, in our youth, played music videos, is attempting to get hip by signing up for a Twitter account. The point of MTV's "mtvmoonman" updates seems to be to promote the upcoming Video Music Awards. But are they reaching the right audience? Just wait until MTV discovers that Twitter's audience consists almost entirely of dweebs, not tweens. Same vowels, mostly different consonants. An understandable mistake for MTV's out-of-touch overlords at Viacom to make. (Full disclosure: They wouldn't be the first.) Add the Twitter flitter this to MTV's list of failed new-media experiments.

"It was rather of surprising for us that Urge didn't gain the kind of traction that we thought it would gain, given MTV's huge and very attractive demographic." — S&P analyst Tuna Amobi, whose analysis of MTV's failed music service seems as unlikely as his name. [CNBC.com]

How long will it take the corporate suits at Viacom to realize that MTV Networks will never, ever, ever succeed in digital music? The latest move, folding MTV's Urge online music store into RealNetworks' Rhapsody service, is just another example of its fumbling. One could point out that MTV doesn't actually broadcast much in the way of music these days; to the extent it's holding onto its youth demographic, it's doing so with a TV schedule packed with reality shows and teen soap operas. Do its viewers even know that the "M" in "MTV" stands for "music"? But never mind that. The reality of MTV is a decade-long history of complete and utter failure in digital music. The timeline of missed opportunities, botched deals, and general cluelessness, after the jump:

After an exhausting seven months of polling, MTV and the Associated Press have finished a survey of America's youth. (Those aged 13-24, at least.) Turns out, kids are happy! Especially white kids, who apparently love their parents, believe in God, want to make gobs of money, and think technology "makes people happier." Half of them never turn off their cell phones. Just wait until you're WORKING with these freaks. You'll be the unhappy one! (P.S. Did you know MTV has "an esteemed research pedigree"? Yeah, us neither.) [MTV]

Videogames are the new Internet, or so we're told. Viacom is among the big media companies renewing a flirtation with the market for developing games — and swearing that this time, the love's for real. Viacom's MTV Networks is dumping $500 million into developing videogames for its various TV properties over the next two years — hot on the heels of a similar $100 million pledge by Nickelodeon, another Viacom-owned cable channel. The company already runs virtual world Nicktropolis and digital pet-nurturing site Neopets, and recent acquisition Harmonix will launch the highly anticipated music game Rock Band. Kids may no longer want their MTV on cable — but Viacom's hoping to hold onto them as their attention shifts to PlayStations, Xboxes, and Wiis. Consider the investment a half-billion-dollar console-ation prize.

From the gay mailbag: "Just read your post about MTV and the aside about Parental Control, which I just saw for the first time last night at midnight after luxuriating in back-to-back episodes of The Hills. I guess it's back — and it's truly insane. Last night featured a dyke couple who wanted to find a replacement for their daughter's water-polo-playing boyfriend. It was wild. One half of the couple was ultra-femme with bright red hair (she was a hairstylist), the other was a total truck driver."

Yesterday, we wondered what the heck MTV was planning at Milk Studios that involved champagne and couches. A reader fills us in that this is, in all likelihood, an event that's part of MTV's grand plan to turn the network into one big Hills rerun. (In unrelated news, what ever happened to Parental Control? That was the one dating show on that channel that we actually enjoyed because it was so absurd). Well! Says a staffer:

From the mailbag: "I work in the same building as Milk Studios and there is an event going on there right now for the VMAs, hosted by MTV. They won't tell me what's going on, but inside there are couches and some sort of presentation going on with champagne, etc. Do you know what is happening?" We have no idea! Couches! Some sort of super-secret award-fixing ceremony, perhaps?

The Hills' harlot Heidi Montag and her creepy, trash-talking, gross fiancé Spencer Pratt have been ordered to stop doing press by MTV, after they bashed Lauren Conrad on Ryan Seacrest's radio show. THERE IS A GOD. Now if we could just get the paparazzi off of them, and maybe make them live in a cave, our lives would be complete. We have to say, though, that MTV trying to muzzle the monster they created strikes us as not only ironic, but maybe... a tad hypocritical?

Having apparently exhausted every other viable urban setting in which to film a variety of easily recognizable, TV-friendly character types bickering over dirty dishes, fucking each other, and vomiting upon the sidewalks outside of nightclubs where they consume the alcohol that will fuel their next bickering/fucking cycle, MTV is returning The Real World to Los Angeles some 14 years after its first rampage through our fair city. Huzzah! More specifically, they'll be housing their 20th season exhibitionists in Hollywood, where the production's omnipresent camera crew should blend in seamlessly with the ones that record the every public appearance of the fame-damaged celebrities the cast members will so desperately try to emulate during their stay.

Brazen Santa Monica jaywalkers, beware! A concerned operative with your best interests at heart writes: "Massive jay-walking sting operation outside HBO, MTV, and Lionsgate. No fewer than four Santa Monica motorcycle cops at the corner of Colorado and Cloverfield, ticketing dozens of pedestrians. Be warned."

Viacom's third quarter profits were "bigger than expected," which sent shares up 4 percent. ("Bigger than expected," in this case, means that they dropped less than 1 percent as compared to last year.) So does that mean all those laid-off people will be rehired? What now? No? [Reuters]

We hear that Vinnie Potestivo, the director of talent at MTV, just quit. He's the guy who casts their reality shows and, we presume, babysits Lauren Conrad and Heidi Montag all day. (Also, we hear his boss left last week—so is there anyone left at MTV in development and casting?)

· Deciding that their Ritalin-addled viewers' comedy needs are not being met by episodes of My Super Sweet Sixteen and Yo Momma, MTV is developing three American Pie/Ferris Bueller's Day Off-inspired movies to air on the network. [Variety]
· Richard "Shaft" Roundtree joins the cast of Speed Racer, hopes to avoid the vicious chimp attacks that have plagued other actors on the set. [THR]
· In an effort to keep its leadership intact for the world-ending, multi-guild strike about to wipe Hollywood off the face of the Earth, the DGA elects Michael Apted to a third term as President. [Variety]
· Despite having Sunday night's most watched show in Some Famous People Sing Nice Songs for the Dead Princess, NBC loses the primetime race to CBS. [THR]
· Shrek the Third takes the overseas box office crown with $69.6 million, but Transformers still managed to pull in $34.7 million. [Variety]

Matt Pinfield is still alive! Also, he's a Chuck Klosterman fan. We still love you anyway, Matt! [CBITC]

· Obsessed with honoring the possible end of The Apprentice by building the Greatest Trump-Branded Reality TV Empire In The World, Donald Trump follows up the recent announcement of Fox project Trump's Tramps with one for his new Pageant Place at MTV, which will document the descent of various Trump-owned beauty contest winners into Trump-upsetting drug abuse and bisexuality. [Variety]
· Fox is reporting its best-ever upfront ad sales numbers. Thank you, American Idol, for making everyone forget about a pretty disastrous Fall season! [THR]
· This week on the not yet canceled On The Lot: 2.4 million confused viewers tune in to see Carrie Fisher get sassy with a cute contestant, watch a horror film about a crazed, unlicensed tree surgeon let loose in an orchard full of blooming victims, and wonder why producers reversed last week's decision to show more of host Adrianna Costa's cleavage. [Variety]
· Wayne Brady will host the Fox summer karaoke game show Don't Forget the Lyrics!, in which contestants are challenged to—wild guesses, anyone?—not forget the lyrics when their teleprompters go dark. [THR]
· Crass commercialism threatens to destroy the creatively pure world of fake YouTube video diary series LonelyGirl15. [Variety]

· Maybe we're just fatigued from too much Hilton coverage, but does it seem like E! gave Paris an airbrushed rack as a going away present? Bonus: A Simple Life mugshot face-off!
· Headline begging for a bad one-liner that we're too lazy to provide: Pope To Be Named NBC Studio Head, Sources Say.
· We're pretty sure the reasons blogs were invented were to make sure it's as simple as possible to start an online feud with indie rockers who allegedly stole your basketball.
· Slow the Fuck Down, says angry Hancock Park sign-maker.
· LAist decries the inhumane conditions (i.e., exposure to Dane Cook) they were subjected to in the MTV Movie Awards Blogghetto.

From 1515 1633 Broadway, not the Viacom building where MTV has its headquarters (and films TRL, and has the MTV Store, where you can buy "old-skool" MTV T-shirts and advertise the network) comes one of the sadder company-wide initiatives we've seen in quite some time. We knew things at MTV were bad, but we didn't quite realize the extent of the misery; note the drama, the pathos, the passion: