MTV Expanding Revived ‘TRL’ to Daily Late Night, Morning Shows
MTV is expanding the revived version of Total Request Live (TRL) with daily late-night and morning shows this summer, an MTV spokesperson confirmed to Rolling Stone. The music video series – which re-launched in October after a nine-year absence – will return from hiatus on April 9th.
“TRL has delivered incredible growth on linear, and we’ve experienced two to three times the growth in our video streams, and TRL is big piece of it — and that’s why we’re expanding it,” MTV network president Chris McCarthy told The Hollywood Reporter. McCarthy confirmed the expansion following a TMZ report claiming that TRL had been canceled.
MTV began testing a spinoff of the afternoon show, Total Request Late-Night, on February 19th, with shows airing twice a week at 11 p.m. That program will expand to four shows per week in summer, according to McCarthy, with the addition of a morning program, Total Request A.M. The flagship afternoon version of TRL will continue to be a two-hour block featuring interviews, performances, music videos catering to the 12 to 24 demographic.
“We’re expanding to target different demographics and dayparts,” McCarthy said. “All three [versions of TRL] will be airing by June. We have no plans of not having TRL on our linear network … The show has been killing it for us.”
TRL‘s revamped afternoon program features rapper-comedian DC Young Thug followed Carson Daly and Damien Fahey as host of the afternoon show, which aired from an updated Times Square studio. The program also featured co-hosts Tamara Dhia, Amy Pham, Erik Zachary and Lawrence Jackson, along with numerous content creators, including Liza Koshy and the Dolan Twins. Ed Sheeran and Migos performed during the premiere episode.
TRL was canceled in 2008, but MTV used the brand on several occasions over the past decade. In September 2016, the network marked National Voter Registration Day with a single-day voting special targeting millennials.