Latenight talkshow host Conan O’Brien will be a first-time host of the 2014 MTV Movie Awards in April, and the Viacom-owned cabler is turning to YouTube supergroup Our2ndLife for a unique series of promotions leading up to and during the event.
The kudocast is set to take place April 13 atthe Nokia Theatre L.A. Live. The MTV Movie Awards telecast will air at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
“After eight years of intense negations, I am honored to announce I am hosting MTV’s second-most prestigious awards show,” said O’Brien, in a prepared statement.
O’Brien, who hosts talkshow “Conan” on TBS, has built a large social presence on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and teamcoco.com, which MTV said made him a logical choice to target a millennial audience.
On Thursday, after MTV announces the nominations for the awards, MTV will release “Nominee Rundown,” which will feature members of Our2ndLife (O2L), a YouTube comedy group of six young dudes who are managed by multichannel network operator Fullscreen. The O2L team will produce short segments that will air on MTV during “AMTV” and also will be made available through MTV’s online, mobile and app platforms as well as through O2L’s social channels.
MTV is paying the O2L team, which has 1.5 million followers on YouTube and 483,000 on Twitter, as talent to participate in the Movie Awards campaign, which will include their segments before the show — on TV and online — and feature them as “social correspondents” on the red carpet. Collectively, the O2L members have more than 8 million YouTube subscribers.
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“The idea is to take Internet celebrities and bring them into our world,” said Colin Helms, MTV senior VP of connected content. “The benefit is we get an authentic voice, someone who is excited about our shows and content but is also bringing it to their audience.” O2L’s specific role in the MTV Movie Awards telecast is yet to be determined, according to Helms.
The members of O2L — Connor Franta, Ricky Dillon, J.C. Caylen, Trevor Moran, Sam Pottorff and Kian Lawley — came together about a year ago to form the Our2ndLife YouTube channel. All of the members now live in L.A.
The MTV Movie Awards segments performed by O2L will translate “really well to what we do on YouTube, because we’re really bloggy and skitty,” said Connor Franta, 21. “We think our audience is going to respond… Their reaction to seeing us on TV will be exciting.”
The “2014 MTV Movie Awards” will air across MTV’s global network of more than 60 channels, reaching more than 500 million households, according to the cabler.
Jesse Ignjatovic, Lee Lodge and Jen Jones are exec producers; and Garrett English serves as exec producer and executive in charge for MTV. Wendy Plaut serves as co-executive producer and executive in charge of celebrity talent. Amy Doyle is executive in charge of music and celebrity talent, and Joanna Bomberg is executive in charge of music talent.
Watch O’Brien’s announcement about his MTV Movie Awards gig on Tuesday’s “Conan”:
