OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network has hired former A&E and MTV programming executive Drew Tappon as its head of unscripted development, program & specials, the network said Wednesday.

Tappon will be responsible for leading the Black female targeted network’s efforts in developing and producing a variety of unscripted programming, according to OWN. Tappon replaces Robyn Lattaker-Johnson, who left the company in April. 

Previously Tappon served as chief creative officer for 495 Productions, overseeing such diverse reality programming as Peace of Mind with Taraji P. Henson, Jersey Shore, Floribama Shore, and A Double Shot at Love. Prior to that, he held various senior programming positions at A&E, Warner Horizon Television and MTV.

“Drew is one of the most talented creatives in the industry having developed and produced some of the biggest unscripted hits on television,” said OWN president Tina Perry in a statement. “I am beyond excited to have him join OWN to bring his expertise to our growing lineup of dynamic series.”

Added Tappon: “I can’t wait to join the team at OWN and help continue its growth. Working with the unscripted community to forge new programming for the network is the chance of a lifetime.”

Jersey Shore Family Vacation has its debut on MTV April 5. Some five-and-a-half years since we last saw the Jersey Shore crew doing their GTL thing — gym, tan, laundry, we know it’s been a while — they are back. Pauly D, JWOWW, Vinny, Snooki and The Situation are among those reuniting in Miami for a dozen episodes.

Wait, they won’t be in Jersey?

“They are Jersey,” said Jacqueline Parkes, chief marketing officer at MTV, VH1 and Logo. “They’re bringing Jersey to Miami.”

Parkes promised a “completely evolved show,” where it depicts the cast “at a new stage of life.” Some have kids. Some have stepped boldly into adulthood.

Some have not. Parkes also promises plenty of the shenanigans that defined Jersey Shore. “The antics are louder and funnier than ever before,” said Parkes.

Reboots have been a mixed bag on television, but Parkes said viewers are ready for the Jersey Shore redo. MTV’s record for trailer views was 7.8 million, she said, with Teen Wolf in 2015, until a Jersey Shore video did 24.4 million. She promises a “global launch,” as the show goes out to 180 countries. “It’s the largest campaign we’ve ever done,” Parkes said.

Striking a decidedly different note, drama Killing Eve, offering “an epic game of cat and mouse” for viewers, premieres on BBC America April 8. Sandra Oh plays a security officer who wants to be a spy. Jodie Comer plays a killer. When a Russian politician is murdered, Oh’s Eve character is tasked with protecting the only witness and finds herself on a collision course with a violent assassin, in Comer’s Villanelle.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge, star of Amazon comedy Fleabag, wrote the scripts and is showrunner.

What drew Waller-Bridge to the project? The two women leads, for starters.

“It’s very provocative, gutsy, edgy,” said Sally Woodward Gentle, who executive produces Killing Eve alongside Waller-Bridge. “And it has great clothes.”

Woodward Gentle also noted the “crackling charisma” when Oh and Comer’s characters share the screen.

And it’s got “oodles of humor,” she added, despite Killing Eve’s dark undertones. “Like Fleabag, it’s got these gorgeous vignettes of comedy, where the journey is painfully funny because it is truthful.”

Woodward Gentle said she was drawn to the project after a colleague had dinner with Luke Jennings, who wrote the novellas the series is based on. Jennings’s approach to the stories, she said, felt unique.

What does Woodward Gentle have planned for premiere night? Not a heckuva lot, in fact.

“We’ll be in the U.K.,” she said. “Tucked up in bed.”

In New York’s Times Square last month, WE tv drummed up support for the March 2 launch of a series by opening a pop-up “Museum of Natural Hysteria,” replete with a scream booth, a Rage-O-Meter Punching Bag, cranial massage chairs and a rogues’ photo gallery of viral brides to be, including an infamous one in 2012 who was left at the altar. (Google it.)

Few shows might be deemed worthy of such an oversized promotional presentation, but the cable network deemed the return of its series Bridezillasafter a five-year hiatus to be one of them. The AMC Networks outlet is resurrecting the reality show for fans who want to watch, again, as women lose their grip prior to their nuptials, as well as a new generation that wants to know what the fuss was about.

WE tv is one of several cable channels resurrecting TV franchises previously thought buried in the graveyard of cancelled shows. While the broadcast networks are generating headlines with reboots of such classic shows as Roseanne, Murphy Brown and Get Christie Love!, cable networks are also looking to mine ratings gold by resurrecting nostalgic programming.

Related: Broadcast ’Boots Bring Back Buzz

Heading Back to the Beach
Networks say bringing back popular series, from TLC’s Trading Spaces to MTV’s Jersey Shore, which comes back in April with the original cast, including JWOWW, Snooki and The Situation, in Jersey Shore Family Vacation — already green-lit by MTV for a second season — generates instant viewer recognition in a crowded and noisy environment.

“There’s so much television these days, and so much entertainment for people — you have to find a way to hook them quickly — and I think there’s a built-in interest and excitement around a [rebooted] series that provides a different way to tap that existing passion,” said Tom Ascheim, president of Freeform, which will reboot the 1990s Fox series Party of Five. “We definitely hope it makes it easier to promote and taps into an existing fan base, as well as attract people who haven’t spent so much time with the show or vaguely heard of it and want to see the new one.”

While TV programmers have long sought to relive the glory of classic shows through remakes and movie takeoffs, the trend has exploded over the past year as networks look to offer content with built-in audiences to counteract a Peak TV dynamic that featured more than 450 scripted television shows in 2017 and is expected to grow this year.

More than a dozen shows from the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s are scheduled to return to the air in 2018. Some will be completely new versions of the original, others will feature the shows’ original casts. They come in a variety of genres, including comedy (CBS’s Murphy Brown), drama (CBS’s Magnum P.I.), and unscripted fare (History’s In Search of …).

Even streaming services that haven’t been around very long are tapping into the past with reboots of classic shows like The Twilight Zone (CBS All Access), Lost in Spaceand Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (Netflix).

WE tv executive vice president of development and original programming Lauren Gellert said social media has changed the dynamics of preparing for a wedding day, which has allowed the network to bring back popular series Bridezillas.

After a 10-season run, the series was benched, replaced in the lineup by Marriage Boot Camp.

With social sites such as Pinterest and Facebook becoming major platforms for brides to shop and showcase themselves, Gellert said the network saw an opportunity to reboot the franchise for a new generation.

“Bridezillas was obviously a fan favorite when we rested the show, but it certainly didn’t leave the zeitgeist and pop-culture lexicon of words often used in the press and by celebrities,” she said. “We thought it was a good time for a little nostalgia and to tap into some of our roots.”

Gellert said the show will draw former Bridezillas fans as well as social media-savvy millennials looking to connect with the franchise.

“There’s a new ‘better find me my selfie stick’ kind of bridezilla out there that thinks everything should just be fine if she orders flowers she saw on Pinterest,” Gellert said.

TLC will also look to shake the dust off of one of its most popular series, Trading Spaces, which returns with new episodes on April 7 after being off the air for a decade. The series, arguably the granddaddy of the home-renovation genre, premiered in 2000, but new episodes for the show have not aired since 2008.

TLC president Nancy Daniels, upped last week to chief brand officer, Discovery & Factual, at Discovery Communications, told TV critics in January that the series, which will bring back many of the show’s stars (including host Paige Davis) was a cornerstone show for TLC that fans had for years inquired about returning.

“From the moment we announced it, we knew it was the right time,” Daniels said during the Television Critics Association tour. “Just the interest, the excitement and the people coming out of the woodwork to tell you their favorite episodes and favorite stories … I’m thrilled and excited, and I just feel like it is the right time.”

Davis said the Trading Spaces brand remains popular with viewers despite the proliferation of home improvement shows that have aired since the series left the air. She added that the return of the show’s original crew as well as the addition of several new professionals will help the show’s appeal beyond its fan base.

“Trading Spaces will offer viewers the same thing it offered when it first came into the landscape — creativity, resourcefulness and approachability — and we created a catalyst for a new genre of television,” she said. “I’m not concerned that Trading Spaces will not break through the clutter; one of the benefits of all of that stuff being out there is that our viewing audience is much more educated, and they’ll appreciate what we have always offered.”

Reviving a popular show with its original cast isn’t a guarantee of ratings success. For reboots to work, the show has to remind people of the past but reflect today’s society and culture, Freeform’s Ascheim said. The Walt Disney Co.-owned network’s reboot of Party of Five, in which five brothers and sisters are forced to raise themselves after their parents die, changes the dynamics of the original by following the lives of five siblings after their parents are deported.

“The basic construct is the same, but this time updated to reflect the culture in which we live now,” Ascheim said. “It feels like it’s up to this moment in our world when it launches.”

Familiarity Breeds Success
The show’s familiarity, coupled with its ability to address some of today’s societal issues, could be a recipe for attracting young viewers who may or may not have streamed episodes from the original series on Hulu.

“Just in the same way that we often base a television series on a movie, book or some other pre-existing or intellectual property that people already have a relationship with, taking a familiar series makes viewers more likely to pay attention on the way toward making the show,” Ascheim said. “And then once it’s made they create a disposition and affection for it.”

WE tv’s Gellert said reboots appeal to viewers exhausted by the constant drumbeat of controversy and drama in the current breaking-news cycle and want comfort television, something safe and familiar. “I think there’s some innate goodness in Bridezillas, because there’s a lot of humor and it really is an over-the-top reaction to what is the biggest day of many of these women’s lives,” she said. “We see a wedding at the end and we feel good about that. We laughed with her — we thought she was insane — and yet we see that he is really marrying her, and how happy this crazy bride is. There’s humor, a lot of lightness and a celebratory moment, and I do think we need that in today’s fast-paced media environment.”

Ascheim doesn’t believe the reboot phenomena is in danger of running out of steam in the near future, adding that these reimagined shows can thrive side by side with the plethora of new, original scripted and reality shows.

“I don’t think we’re in danger of going overboard yet,” he said.

MTV has renewed its Jersey Shore reboot series Jersey Shore Family Vacation for a second season in advance of the show’s April 5 premiere. 

The series, which will reunite Jersey Shore’s original housemates -- Deena Nicole Cortese, Paul “Pauly D” Delvecchio,” Jenni “JWOWW” Farley, Vinny Guadagnino, Ronnie Ortiz-Magro, Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi and Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino -- will premiere across all of MTV’s channels globally, according to the network.

MTV will air four weekly “Road to Vacation” specials beginning March 15 that will look back at the most iconic Jersey Shore moments with all new cast interviews, said network officials. 

495 Productions Founder & CEO SallyAnn Salsano serves as executive producer for Jersey Shore.

MTV will debut its new reality series Jersey Shore Family Vacation on April 5, the network said Wednesday.

The series, featuring the original cast of the Jersey Shore hit reality series which aired on MTV from 2009-12, will for the first time in the network’s history premiere day and date across Viacom’s international network of MTV channels in nearly 180 countries.

Jersey Shore Family Vacation is executive produced by 495 Productions Founder & CEO SallyAnn Salsano, with Nina L. Diaz and Jackie French serving as executive producers for MTV.

Whether she’s at the Jersey Shore or having a Party Down South, reality show producer SallyAnn Salsano has her finger on the pulse of the reality TV viewer. As president of 495 Productions, Salsano has produced some of the most-watched and discussed reality series on cable in recent years, including MTV’s 2009 hit Jersey Shore, which for six seasons was the network’s most watched show and spawned several Salsano-produced spinoffs, including Snooki & JWOWW and The Show With Vinny. Most recently, Salsano has produced CMT’s most watched series ever, Party Down South, which last Thursday (Jan. 28) launched its fifth and final season. Salsano spoke about her thriving production company as well as the reality category at large with Multichannel News programming editor R. Thomas Umstead. An edited transcript of the interview follows.

MCN:This must be a bittersweet week for you with the launch of the final season of CMT’sParty Down South. Did you think the show would become the big hit that it did?

SallyAnn Salsano: I would say that I’m excited. It’s great to go out on top as the No. 1 show on the channel. On the flip side, I think the party is still going to go on. These kids have so much life left in them — this particular cast is just warming up.

MCN:You’ve carved out a niche in the reality genre with shows likeParty Down SouthandJersey Shore. What’s behind the appeal of these shows?

SAS: I think sometimes people underestimate how much people like to see other people in situations that they’re in. Sure, maybe these are heightened situations, but if you think back to any one of our lives, we’ve all done a lot of the stuff these people have done — just not on television.

I think the shows are really a modern-day after-school special. When I was a kid, I used to run home to watch those specials and say, “Oh no, Johnny broke up with his girlfriend because he cheated and here’s what happened.” Looking back at them now, they feel a little preachy, whereas with these [reality] shows, it’s a way to get a real sense of what’s happening without someone being judgey or feeling like you’re being talked down to.

MCN:A number ofJersey Shorealumni have gone on to do other projects. When you look at producing a show, are the characters more important to the show’s success than the situations they’re put in?

SAS: I think it’s the characters for sure, then it’s the environment you create for them. I think the success comes from the group, and they become super successful because they feed off of each other. It’s so real-life, and real-life situations — you can do a show like this 500 times as long as you have a different cast. You’re going to get different stories and different things that appeal to different age groups.

MCN:Industry observers are calling this period the Golden Age of Television because of all the quality scripted series offered across multiple platforms. Can the same be said about the reality category?

SAS: I think it’s all an ebb and flow. I think the success of shows like Empire made everyone say, “Oh my God,” and flip to that side. In the end it all balances out, and I honestly think that there’s enough room for all of us.

On the flip side, the only people that talk about scripted vs. reality shows are people that work in the business. If you ask the average person what are your favorite TV shows, they’re not like, “In scripted I watch this and in reality I watch that.” They just say their favorite TV shows. It doesn’t matter to them. It’s still casting, it’s still editing — its just a different way of doing it.

MCN:So what’s next for 495 Productions?

SAS: We have [WE tv’s] Ex-Isle up now, and I love it because a lot of people in their lives are in a relationship with someone, but then you break up but you kind of keep them on the back burner as your backup plan. But sometimes that backup plan does not allow you to get on with your life. It’s the modernday booty call — when the need calls, they just call their ex. This is a show where we get people together to say, look how wrong you are for each other … why are you torturing each other?

We’re also in production on a new season of Blue Collar Millionaires on CNBC and we have a new show on Lifetime (The Mother/ Daughter Experiment: Celebrity Edition, premiering March 1).