TRL Makes it 10 Years Without Playing a Music Video in its Entirety
Times Square, New York, NY – After ten years and 2,247 episodes, MTV’s show “Total Request Live” [TRL] aired for the final time this past Sunday night. And even more impressive than a ten year run on a station that is continually changing gears so not to lose touch with youth culture, is the fact that they made it that far without ever playing a music video in its entirety.
In fact, over the ten years of the show, the record for longest time span devoted to one video was just under forty seconds, and was for the video “Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)” by The Offspring.
“TRL’s” roots were in a show simply titled “Total Request”, which featured Carson Daly counting down videos from an empty set. However, MTV decided to give the show a complete makeover and renamed it “Total Request Live” in the process. It officially premiered on MTV as “Total Request Live” on September 14, 1998. Right out of the gate, they played clips of music videos that lasted about twenty seconds, and never looked back.
“While the music videos were always the show’s top priority, we felt that playing a small fraction of the video while interrupting it with comments from audience members and always having the sound of screaming girls playing over it was the best way to do the song justice.” said Carson Daly, who was the show’s host from 1998-2002. “Besides, in order to fit all of the critical content into the show, something had to be squeezed out. Rather than cut a hard hitting interview with [usually] some boy band or trim down the eighteen minutes of commercials, we decided that it was the music videos that needed to be shorn.”
While suffering ratings led to the show’s end, during its peak in 2000, “TRL” averaged more than 700,000 viewers a day, and a band’s appearance on the show automatically meant a surge in album sales. Performers took note of this and “TRL” became a cavalcade of stars with big-name after big-name dropping by the studio to promote their new albums and new movies.
“TRL” is also widely responsible for launching the careers of boy bands and pop princesses like The Backstreet Boys, ‘N Sync, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Jessica Simpson. It has also been integral in the crossover of Disney stars Hilary Duff, The Jones Brothers, and Aly & AJ.
While plans for TRL’s time slot haven’t been officially announced, industry experts speculate it will be a toss up between reruns of “The Hills” and reruns of “Real World/Road Rules Challenge”.
