Reuters reports that E! Entertainment Television has announced that despite faltering ratings, it has renewed its controversial reality series featuring former Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith for a second season. The show, which premiered last August, has been a hit for the cable network, helping to boost its overall ratings among adults aged 18 to 49, the key advertising demographic, by 19 percent over a year earlier.

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While the show's average ratings are well below the numbers it pulled for its premiere, they are still strong enough that the network will begin production on a new season next month, with a debut said for "sometime in early 2003." The final episode of the current season is set to air on November 3, 2002.

Critics have savaged the show and some advertisers have been reluctant to be associated with a program that seems to push the envelope on good taste.

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