Jonathan Murray (Born 1955) is a producer and co-creator of MTV's The Real World , Road Rules, and Oxygen Network's The Bad Girls Club. He attended Fayetteville-Manlius High School and is currently in their Hall of Distinction. He went on to earn a degree from the prestigious Missouri School of Journalism at the University of Missouri in Columbia, MO.
Murray founded Bunim-Murray with partner Mary-Ellis Bunim. Agent Mark Itkin of the William Morris Agency put the two together to develop a scripted soap opera for MTV. When that was too expensive, they decided to try an unscripted soap and the Real World was born. "We knew within 20 minutes of shooting that we had a show," Bunim said.
Jonathan and Mary-Ellen's company, Bunim/Murray Productions, spearheaded the reality television genre. Among the numerous other reality programs that Murray and Bunim co-created over the years were Road Rules, Love Cruise, Making the Band, The Real World/Road Rules Challenge, the reality feature film The Real Cancun, the real-life daily syndicated Starting Over, as well as Fox's smash hit, The Simple Life.
His niece, Hailey Murray, appeared on the Daytime reality series, Starting Over, another show he helped create, during the show's first season, with her mother, Lynnell.
