MTV’s “The Hills” Returns For Extended Season 3 Premiere Starting Tonight At 10pm ET/PT

MTV fans wait no longer! The saga continues with 10 new episodes of “The Hills” premiering March 24th at 10pm ET/PT. The extended third season will begin with Lauren and Whitney’s anticipated journey to Paris, where they travel to work for Teen Vogue at the Crillon Ball, an international gala for debutantes. The drama will continue back in Los Angeles as the cameras reveal the latest stories affecting the cast including Lauren moving into a new house, Whitney finding a new job, and Heidi and Spencer’s tumultuous relationship.

With so many surprises and new stories, we had to kick it off with a glamorous night to remember – and who better to do that than the one and only Mariah Carey. Lauren, Whitney and Audrina will join Mariah and MTV VJ Lyndsey Rodrigues along with all their fans at the ultimate premiere event live from Gotham Hall in New York City to watch the anticipated return of “The Hills.” Starting at 9pm ET/PT, fans will have an opportunity to get up close and personal with the cast like never before, while giving viewers a chance to catch up on the latest drama of the last two episodes. With the world watching, Mariah will take the stage immediately following the show for an unforgettable performance. And just in case you hadn’t had enough – stay tuned by going to MTV.com the following day to see bonus performances from Mariah, along with all the inside dirt on “The Hills” cast.

If you’re not one of the lucky few who can party with the girls, don’t worry. All fans can visit MTV’s popular virtual world “Virtual Hills” by going to www.virtualhills.mtv.com. Just like the real Hills, the Virtual Hills will be spending lots of time showcasing new fashions in tandem with the return of Season 3. Users will have the chance to show off their own style and design expertise to the entire virtual world, as well as to the stars of “The Hills” themselves!

Fans can friend Lauren, Whitney, Audrina, Heidi and other cast members of “The Hills” by going to IAmOnMTV.com (www.IAmOnMTV.com), a new social networking community from MTV that gives audiences the chance to interact with the cast and crew behind many of MTV’s most popular franchises including “The Hills,” “Making the Band 4,” and “A Shot At Love With Tila Tequila.” Users can have conversations with the cast, leave fan videos, respond to blogs and read and leave comments with their favorite MTV personalities. While cast members vie for the largest fan base on the site, fans compete with one another to be crowned “Biggest Fan” on their favorite personality’s page. The sites continues MTV’s commitment to connect viewers more intimately to the MTV personalities they love as well as each other, and have collectively garnered more than 1.5 million total unique visitors and 25 million page views since the site launched in October 2007.

Show enthusiasts can further delve into the fun with “The Hills After Show,” an interactive talk show streamed immediately following “The Hills” exclusively on MTV.com. Each week, Jessi Cruickshank and Dan Levy are joined in-studio by special guests to discuss, debate and sometimes mock the things that just happened on “The Hills” while aficionados add their opinions and observations to the conversation by webcam. In addition, http://www.hills.mtv.com will feature the show’s music, full episodes, exclusive behind-the-scenes photos, bios as well as a dedicated blog to “The Hills” where fans can dish on the latest news and check out exclusive interviews and photos.

Additionally, full episodes will be available on MTV On Demand, online through MTV’s broadband syndication partners and MTV Mobile. Cast bios, episode guides, photos and weekly polls will also be available on the MTV mobile Internet site by visiting http://m.mtv.com.

“The Hills” was the #1 original series on cable among P12-34 in 2007. With a 4.5 P12-34 rating, the third season reached over 73 million viewers (P2+)and ranked #1 in its time period (Mon 10-10:30p) among P12-34 across all of television, even besting broadcast. “The Hills” is also the top show area on MTV.com for all of ’07 in terms of uniques and streams. Since the premiere of the third season in August, “The Hills” show area on MTV.com has attracted an average of 600,000 unique visitors a week. Viewers are streaming clips and After Shows, and they’re also embedding clips for their own personal web pages and blogs. In November alone, streams for “The Hills” represented nearly a third of all streams generated at MTV.com. And “The Hills” also is a viral phenomenon with more than 1.8 million streams viewed through MTV’s embeddable player.

“The Hills” was created by Adam DiVello. Liz Gateley, Adam DiVello and Sean Travis serve as Executive Producers.

Be sure to check back in the next week for our interview with Lo from the series!