It’s no secret that MTV’s 2017 reboot of ‘TRL’ has been a miss with critics and viewers.
As reported here, the daily series premiered to a staggering 166,000 viewers on October 2nd. To put that into context, that figure is less than half of the viewership that led it to its 2008 cancellation. While some blamed the unfortunate Las Vegas terrorist attack (which also happened on Oct. 2) for the cause of the low ratings, others pointed to the show’s new format, hosts, time slot, and so much more.
Whatever the cause, ‘TRL’s ratings have only declined since its premiere. As of Friday (October 13th), only 123,000 tuned in.
Despite the discouraging figures, execs at MTV – namely its president, Chris McCarthy – are “incredibly optimistic” about its future. Read about this and more from his telling sit-down with Billboard inside:
Billboard: The reviews for the premiere were mixed. Can you speak to that?
CM: From our perspective, our goal was to bring younger voices back, more music and drive video and social views. Our metric for success isn’t necessarily the critics’ reviews; it’s the audience. And from that perspective, we far exceeded the numbers.
Up on the linear screen itself, we’re up almost 100 percent with teens and that’s just in week one. From our video views, so everything off-linear, we are up over 30 percent, which week-on-week, the last time we saw that kind of growth was the VMAs….
Can you tell me about how you changed the format of your music countdowns?
CM: You know probably better than anybody that the music world has changed and the idea of a countdown has changed. New Music Friday hits and Drake could have 10 of the top 10, most of which don’t have videos. So the way that we’re playing with countdowns is changing, and that’s what we’ve been experimenting with each day.
So whether that’s a New Music Friday countdown or whether that’s a Throwback Thursday countdown or whether that’s an artist-curated countdown, we’ve been playing with different models and we’ll continue to evolve that until we get it right.
Billboard: Are you optimistic about TRL going forward?
CM: Incredibly optimistic. It’s brought a whole new energy back into the building from a staff perspective. It’s brought a ton of artists back into the building, that we have even more shows and ideas and content that we’re talking with them about.
Read the interview in its entirety by clicking here.
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Delusions of grandeur
Agreed! Im a part of this so called group they want to capture and all i can say to that lame a** Mtv president is BOY BYE! Nobody is checking for you and your stale show! Lame a** hosts and guests. My friends and I def wont be tuning in lol
They need to change the time it comes on.
I stay in NYC and they dont even attract a crowd on the street like they used to! They need to give it up but im sure theyre going to try to capitalize off of the upcoming holiday season with the same ole people… Somebody Please make it go away LMAO
They keep trying to make classic last generation and older shows and use the milennials in place. Basic music, basic generic artists, basic talents with little to no orginality will never translate into something’s started by greatness- the bar is simply set much to High for the poor standards of the weak climate of pop culture today. They should try and make some original stuff and see if it pops off instead of f****** up all the old s*** that came and slayed already. Fetch isn’t happening.
??
Well you better tell them! This generation isn’t worthy of a TRL nor a 106&Park
Youth of today are literally destroying everything that was good. All of you won’t be happy until we are like zombies living in ritual orlds. YOU re all BORING as fu#k!!! Music as suffered so badly because you refuse to spend any money on it and just download and stream for free. You are incapable of romantically meeting someone face to face without n app. you Are fu#ked up the world.
Lmao, so true, the future is scary.
*zombies living in a virtual world
*you have fu#ked up the world
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O46qvbbcTfE&t=91s
Lol mess.
I want it to stay. So hopefully it does thrive.
MTV has hardly any other content so any viewers is a win. Also comparing the ratings to old shows ratings does no good. What’s the daily ratings of the program in comparison to the rest of its daily programming is the real evaluation of how the show is doing. Because last I checked who’s tuning in for their Challenge and 16 & Pregnant shows…
Me. I’ve been watching The Challenge since way back when Road Rules was still on the air. A ton of fans visit the Facebook page every week.
If MTV wants to appeal to today’s music audience they need to produce a NEW show. You can’t bring back TRL expecting viewers to watch a show that is not relevant.