"ELLEN'S DESIGN CHALLENGE" RETURNS TO HGTV ON JANUARY 18 AT 9 P.M. ET/PT

New York [For Immediate Release - December 9, 2015] Television icon and entertainment pioneer Ellen DeGeneres will return to HGTV with a second season of her top-rated furniture competition series, Ellen's Design Challenge. Premiering on Monday, January 18, at 9 p.m. ET/PT, the highly anticipated season will showcase ten competitors as they sketch, design and build innovative furniture to avoid elimination. The contestants, who will be introduced to viewers on New Year's Day in the one-hour special Ellen's Design Challenge: Meet the Cast, will be tasked with such challenges as designing furniture for the greenrooms at The Ellen DeGeneres Show. At the end of the season, the last competitor standing will receive a $100,000 cash prize courtesy of Wayfair.com and see their work featured in HGTV Magazine.

"I am so excited for season two of Ellen's Design Challenge," said Ellen. "I promise this season is going to be bigger, better and armoirier."

"Ellen's signature style and wit make her relatable and so much fun to watch on HGTV," laughed Kathleen Finch, Chief Programming Officer, HGTV, Food Network and Travel Channel. "Ellen's Design Challenge lets fans see her like they never have before - expressing a personal passion for home and furniture design."

During each episode, the competitors will face design challenges that inspire their creativity and, since the clock will be ticking, they will be paired with an expert HGTV or DIY Network carpenter to help them complete the task at hand. The experts include Chip Wade, Matt Blashaw, Jeff Devlin, Matt Muenster, Karl Champley, Brooks Utley, Stephen Zimpel and Ali Azhar. Each contestant also will have access to a "build team" and a large workshop.

The weekly challenges will be judged by Cliff Fong, a twenty-year veteran interior designer and owner of the interior design firm Matt Blacke Inc., and Christiane Lemieux, executive creative director of Wayfair.com. Special guest judges will join the panel each week. The guest judges include Sean Yashar, founder of the design talent management and brand discover firm, The Culture Creative; interior designer Peter Dunham; Wendy Goodman, design editor for New York Magazine; furniture and industrial designer Karim Rashid; Adam Blackman, owner of furniture gallery Blackman Cruz; Thomas Lavin, owner of Thomas Lavin home furnishings; Rodman Primack, Executive Director of Design Miami; and Mallery Roberts Morgan, Los Angeles correspondent for Architectural Digest France.

More series information, including a sneak peek video, the inside scoop from the series carpenters and a behind-the-scenes photo gallery, is available at HGTV.com/Ellen. During the series run, an online companion series will go deeper into the judges' deliberations as they make the difficult elimination decisions each week.

Ellen's Design Challenge is produced by Ellen's production company, A Very Good Production, and A. Smith & Co. in association with Telepictures. The executive producers for the series are Ellen, Jeff Kleeman of A Very Good Production, and Arthur Smith, Kent Weed, Ian Mallahan and Jonathan Singer of A. Smith & Co.

ABOUT HGTV

America's leading home and lifestyle brand, HGTV features a top-rated cable network that is distributed to more than 96 million U.S. households and HGTV.com, the premier source for home-related inspiration, instruction and entertainment, attracts more than six million people each month. The brand also includes the HGTV HOME(TM) consumer products line which showcases exclusive collections of paint, flooring, furniture, plants, fabrics and other home-oriented products. For more information on HGTV HOME branded products and to find a retailer, go to www.hgtvhome.com. In partnership with Hearst Magazines, the HGTV Magazine, a home and lifestyle publication, is currently available on newsstands. Viewers can become fans of HGTV and interact with other home improvement enthusiasts through Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram. Headquartered in Knoxville, Tenn., HGTV is owned by Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc. (SNI).

ABOUT TELEPICTURES

Telepictures is an industry-leading and Emmy(R) Award-winning producer of innovative, multiplatform advertiser-friendly television series and digital content for the first-run syndication, cable and digital marketplace. Programs produced by Telepictures have won 90 Emmy(R) Awards in the last 19 years, including Outstanding Talk Show or Outstanding Talk Show Host for 16 of the last 18 years. Current Telepictures series include Crime Watch Daily, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Ellen's Design Challenge, Extra, Judge Mathis, The People's Court, The Real, TMZ, TMZ Live and TMZ Sports. Upcoming programs include Heads Up!, Hello Goodbye and South of Wilshire (January-February 2016 preview on select FOX Television Stations). For more information about Telepictures programming, please visit www.telepicturestv.com.

ABOUT A VERY GOOD PRODUCTION

A Very Good Production (AVGP) is the Emmy(R)-winning television and film production company of producer/writer/actor/host Ellen DeGeneres. Based at Warner Bros. Television Group (WBTVG) with an exclusive multiyear deal, AVGP produces the nationally syndicated daytime talk program The Ellen DeGeneres Show and develops television projects for all divisions of WBTVG, including scripted and unscripted primetime series for network and cable, as well as additional syndicated fare. AVGP's slate of television projects includes the upcoming animated family comedy Green Eggs and Ham for Netflix; the forthcoming unscripted variety/comedy series Little Big Shots and unscripted relationship series First Dates for NBC; the unscripted design competition program Ellen's Design Challenge for HGTV; Heads Up!, a fast-paced game show debuting in 2016 on HLN and based on the wildly popular game and app of the same name from The Ellen DeGeneres Show; and Hello Goodbye, an upcoming unscripted series for the Travel Channel highlighting heart-warming - and sometimes heart-wrenching - stories of love, sorrow, family and friendship from travelers of all cultures and walks of life. Jeff Kleeman serves as President of A Very Good Production.

ABOUT A. SMITH & CO. PRODUCTIONS

A. Smith & Co. Productions creates some of the most innovative, highly rated, and high-quality programming for the domestic and international television marketplace. The company has produced more than 3,000 hours of award-winning programming - with budgets totaling over one billion dollars across more than 45 broadcast and cable networks. Current productions include "Hell's Kitchen," "American Ninja Warrior," "Spartan Race," "Ellen's Design Challenge," "Unsung," "Full Throttle Saloon," "Team Ninja Warrior," "Container Homes," and "The Dunk King." Past hits include "Kitchen Nightmares," "Wizard Wars," "Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura," "UFC Countdown," "Joe Rogan Questions Everything," "Paradise Hotel," "I Survived a Japanese Game Show," "The Swan," "Trading Spaces," "Pros vs. Joes," "Skating with Celebrities," and many others. For more information, visit www.asmithco.com.