Total Request Live is returning to the music channel MTV, according to the New York Times.
Chris McCarthy, the MTV President, has promised the show will return in October and that “a massive studio” is currently under construction facing New York’s Time Square. Speaking about the new studio he has stated: “If we’re going to come back and reinvent MTV, the studio is a given. It is the centerpiece.”
The show, previously hosted by Carson Daly and filmed in Times Square, originally ran from 1998 to 2008 on MTV. It featured celebrity and musical guests and played the top 10 most requested music videos of the day. The show is said to be returning due to a spike in MTV’s ratings and follows revamps of shows such as Fear Factor and Nick Cannon‘s Wild ‘N Out.
In the interview with NYT, McCarthy discussed the recent decision to discontinue MTV News and the unfortunate laying off of several staff writers and freelancers. He said this action was carried out in order to create “more video and short-form content for a younger audience. MTV at its best — whether it’s news, whether it’s a show, whether it’s a docu-series — is about amplifying young people’s voices“. He continued, “we put young people on the screen, and we let the world hear their voices. We shouldn’t be writing 6,000-word articles on telling people how to feel.”
