It is the most popular show US music cable network MTV has ever had. Now the broadcaster is bringing its hit reality show Jersey Shore, in which eight impeccably groomed twentysomethings share a beach house on New Jersey's Atlantic coast, to the UK. The twist is that it will be based in Newcastle and renamed ... Geordie Shore.

MTV said it chose to base the series in the north-east because its residents know how to have a good time come rain or shine. "Jersey Shore is set in the summer and it is always summer in the north-east," said Kerry Taylor, the director of television for MTV Networks UK and Ireland. "No one wears a coat and Geordie girls are always out in their miniskirts."

The original US incarnation, which began in 2009, quickly became a cultural phenomenon and returned for its third series with 8.4 million viewers earlier this month.

But it was not to everyone's tastes – one Guardian writer described it as making "Big Brother look like Dostoyevsky" – and it caused controversy after it was accused of stereotyping Italian-Americans.

The UK version of the show will be made by Liverpool-based Lime Pictures, producer of another teen reality show, The Only Way Is Essex, which was a hit for digital channel ITV2 last year, and Channel 4 soap Hollyoaks.

Taylor said it would be "loosely based on the American show". "The things we are taking away is the great cast – memorable characters who are funny and brash but at the same time warm and get on with each other," she added.

Fiona O'Sullivan, the head of factual at Lime Pictures, added: "We've already found some perfect characters to bring Geordie Shore to life and can't wait to get filming on what we believe will become the next big, must-watch, reality show."

Geordie Shore will air on MTV in the UK in late spring or early summer.

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