Menounos to Co-Host 'Extra'

Maria Menounos is joining Warner Bros.' Extra, where she will co-host the show with Mario Lopez. She'll also have on-air duties at Dr. Drew's Lifechangers, and will develop new projects.

Menounos joins Extra from NBC, where she's been since 2005 working as a special correspondent for Access Hollywood, and contributed to Today, NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams and Dateline. From 2002-05, she was a correspondent for CBS Television Distribution's Entertainment Tonight and a host of ET on MTV and ET on VH-1. She's also a New York Times best-selling author with the release of her first book, The EveryGirl's Guide to Life.

The deal was announced by Hilary Estey McLoughlin, president of Telepictures, a production division of Warner Bros., and Lisa Gregorisch-Dempsey, senior executive producer of Extra and Dr. Drew's Lifechangers.

Contributing editor Paige Albiniak has been covering the business of television for more than 25 years. She is a longtime contributor to Next TV, Broadcasting + Cable and Multichannel News. She concurrently serves as editorial director for The Global Entertainment Marketing Academy of Arts & Sciences (G.E.M.A.). She has written for such publications as TVNewsCheck, The New York Post, Variety, CBS Watch and more. Albiniak was B+C’s Los Angeles bureau chief from September 2002 to 2004, and an associate editor covering Congress and lobbying for the magazine in Washington, D.C., from January 1997 - September 2002.