More Epic Battles on the Horizon! Spike TV Renews the Multi-Platform Hit Series 'Deadliest Warrior' for a Second Season

More Epic Battles on the Horizon! Spike TV Renews the Multi-Platform Hit Series 'Deadliest Warrior' for a Second Season

Series To Return With 13 New Episodes Beginning Spring 2010 Spike.com's Original Series "Deadliest Warrior - The Aftermath" Also Set To Return After Record Traffic

LOS ANGELES, July 21 /PRNewswire/ -- History's most lethal combatants will continue the fight to the death as Spike TV renews "Deadliest Warrior" for a second season, it was announced today by Sharon Levy, senior vice president, original programming, Spike TV. The successful first season averaged 1.8 million viewers, had more than 6.2 million show-related video views on Spike.com and is Spike TV's best-selling series this year across all download-to-own (DTO) platforms. The second season of "Deadliest Warrior" will premiere 13 episodes in Spring 2010 with Spike.com's original round table discussion series, "Deadliest Warrior - The Aftermath," also set to return in conjunction with the new episodes.

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"We are thrilled with the success 'Deadliest Warrior' has achieved both on air and online for Spike," said Levy. "The decision to pick it up is a no-brainer. Since hitting the air, fans have endlessly debated and shared online, even offering some great ideas for future match-ups."

Airing at 10 p.m. on Tuesdays, the first season of "Deadliest Warrior" (April 7 - May 31) averaged a robust 1.8 million viewers, ranking second among men 18-49 and men 18-34, behind only the NBA Playoffs on TNT. The premiere season concluded as the highest-rated first season of any original program on Spike since 2005. With the multi-platform success of the series, Spike TV is currently pursuing a book deal, video game and various other merchandising opportunities based on the series.

Also a hit on Spike.com, the "Deadliest Warrior" show pages attracted a season average of over 207,000 weekly unique visitors. Show-related videos generated over 6.2 million video views during the course of the season. "Deadliest Warrior - The Aftermath" was hugely successful and maintained the online interest between episodes, generating 1.8 million video views (April 7 - June 21). "Deadliest Warrior" also performed exceptionally well on DTO platforms, driving sales to record highs on iTunes, Xbox, PlayStation and Zune. It was Spike TV's number one selling series across all DTO platforms in May and is Spike TV's best-selling series this year.

"Deadliest Warrior" pits history's greatest warriors against one another to determine, once and for all, who reigns supreme. To collect data on these legends of combat, the series features a fight club that consists of series regulars Geoff Desmoulin, a biomedical engineer and karate black belt who uses high-tech sensors to collect the data, and computer whiz Max Geiger, who tracks all the test findings to ultimately run in a battle simulation program. Along with the use of 21st century science and the latest in CGI technology, the series enlists warrior-specific, world-class fighters and experts to provide insight into what makes these combatants tick, analyzing every facet of their unique skills of destruction, culminating in a head-to-head final fight between two legends of the battlefield that will produce the deadliest warrior. The premiere season featured such iconic warriors in Spartans and Samurai, prominent individuals like William Wallace and Shaka Zulu, zealous terrorists in the Taliban and even the notoriously bloody Yakuza, among others.

"Deadliest Warrior" featured content on Spike.com will also be expanded next season. Outside of the return of the weekly roundtable series "Deadliest Warrior - The Aftermath," initial plans for the show page content includes "Blood in the Sand" weekly blog articles, sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes looks and interviews with series regulars and experts. Users will also be able to view full episodes of that week's episode online after it has premiered on-air. Further plans will be announced at a later date.

"Deadliest Warrior" is produced for Spike TV by Morningstar Entertainment ("Manhunters: Fugitive Task Force"). The series is executive produced by Gary Tarpanian and Paninee Theeranuntawat. Sharon Levy and Tim Duffy are Spike TV's executives in charge of production.

Spike TV is available in 98 million homes and is a division of MTV Networks. A unit of Viacom (NYSE:VIA)(NYSE:VIA.B), MTV Networks is one of the world's leading creators of programming and content across all media platforms. Spike TV's Internet address is www.spike.com and for up-to-the-minute and archival press information and photographs, visit Spike TV's press site at http://www.spike.com/press.

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Source: Spike TV

CONTACT: David Schwarz, +1-212-767-8639, david.schwarz@spiketv.com, or
Melissa Leung Sugiura, +1-310-407-4729, melissa.sugiura@mtvstaff.com

Web Site: http://www.spike.com/

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