TRL is gone...it's about time!

Rock nation! What is goin on everybody? OK so the first story that I wanna talk about is something I really couldn't discuss at the time being that I worked for Fuse and we try not to glorify the competition regardless of what the story might be. But now that I'm on my own I can talk about what I want. And so I'm talking about TRL on MTV. It is officially over and done with.

Now am I surprised by this? Yeah in one respect...that it took so long for them to cancel that debacle of a show. Does anyone remember what TRL actually stood for? It stood for Total Request Live. Emphasis on Request. The show started as a video request show where people could comment on what music videos the show should play. But see this was back in the day when MTV actually played music...and videos. The show evolved into a pop culture phenomenon, however, mainly because of its location in NYC.

If you've ever been to New York and stopped by the TRL studios you know what I'm talking about. It's in the middle of Times Square aka tourist central and they would shoot in the middle of the day when everyone was out and about. There was always a large crowd underneath the huge windows that opened up into the studio where you could see the guest that was there. As a marketing tool it was brilliant. Give everyone the chance to see their favorite celebrity simply by standing outside a window? Sounds like a good plan to me. But you slowly started to see less of one thing. Videos. The main reason of the show was fading into the background. Now if they changed the name of the show to something that didn't allude to playing videos then that would have been ok. Instead they decided to be lazy and just turn the title into an acronym.

As the years trudged on, the channel itself moved faster than the show. All programming became reality-based with no focus on music at all. TRL suddenly became a remnant of old times. "You mean there's still a show that plays music? But that cuts into my time watching The Hills marathon!" Pathetic. And it even got to a point where they would only shoot the show live two days out of the week and pre-tape other episodes. So finally they said the show would be put to rest.

See this is the beauty of channels like Fuse. They play music...and they play a lot of it! It would be easy for the channel to simply go to all reality-based programs but they said nay. We will play music because that's what we are. Music Television. Now there are shows on Fuse like Rock and Roll Acid Test, You Rock, Let's Roll and there are new shows coming soon to the channel but they all focus on music. Music is what they specialize in and they will bring music to you regardless of the show. As far as I'm concerned they're the only channel on TV that does music...even VH1 has gone reality!

MTV has now officially solidified its place in TV as the channel that goes against everything it stands for. And don't say that show FNMTV brings back the music. It's on at nights on friday. Who is at home watching TV on friday night? Exactly.

Anyways, R.N., sorry about the crazy rant but I've been wanting to get this off of my chest for a while. And then this doesn't help either.

Rick Wright, one of the founding members of Pink Floyd, died yesterday. He was 65 years old. Shit. This is for Rick.





Rock it out!

Sami