MTV is staking its brand on a lesser-known one: Russell Brand.
The actor and comedian will host this year's Video Music Awards, to be shown live from Paramount Pictures Studios in Los Angeles on September 7.
Brand recently co-starred in the Judd Apatow-produced comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall and the Reese W
itherspoon-produced fairy tale Penelope. He is currently filming the Adam Sandler comedy Bedtime Stories.
Brand said he had not started thinking about how he would approach the assignment - not that there is much planning to be done for the infamously anything-goes show.
"I've just been invited to do it," Brand said. "It'll be good to preside over what is sure to be only vaguely co-ordinated televised insanity."
Not that chaos or improvising is a problem for the 33-year-old comedian.
"That's how I've made my name in this country: Flying very much by the seat - and the crotch - of my pants."
MTV hired Brand to be a VJ on its Britain-based show Dance Floor Chart after catching his comedy act in Edinburgh. He also hosted a call-in show called MTV Select.
Brand has hosted numerous TV shows and events in the UK, performed sell-out comedy gigs and written a best-selling memoir, My Booky Wook, published last year.
His popular radio show, The Russell Brand Show, debuted two years ago in the UK, and his TV show Ponderland was recently nominated by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in the Best Comedy Programme category.
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