MTV Reviving TRL
It’s no secret that MTV in recent years has moved far, far away from its musical roots, choosing instead to dive deep into reality programming (or “hell,” depending on who you speak to). McCarthy says TRL would return in October, once again emanating from a massive second floor studio now under construction overlooking Times Square. The rebooted TRL will initially run an hour a day, and might grow to two to three hours a day as the show develops. The Times says the new show will also feature daily content for Instagram, Snapchat and other social media channels.
Not surprisingly, record labels are already showing a keen interest in this newly rebooted promotional platform — Charlie Walk, President of Republic Records, noted that in recent years MTV had abandoned the music business and that bringing TRL back was a big step in the right direction. “Who’s not going to support a platform that’s covering all of the buckets of social media and cable to allow your artist to go on, play a video, perform a song and to talk about their new music that just got released?” he said. “How do you say no to that? We’re going to give it a shot, a big shot.”