Carson Daly Returned to ‘TRL’ Times Square Studio For Reunion Special, But It Won’t Air on MTV
Billboard ·
The reboot featuring the show's original host will reportedly roll out on Roku sometime next year.
As it turns out, you can go home again. According to an EW report, Today Show featured anchor and The Voice host Carson Daly recently returned to the iconic Total Request Live studio in New York’s Times Square to film a TRL reunion special that is reportedly slated to air sometime next year.
But in a twist, the reboot will not air on the show’s original network, MTV, but rather as a special on digital streamer Roku; at press time, spokespeople for Roku and MTV had not returned Billboard ‘s request for confirmation on the report.
Daly, 53, who, along with Toby Amies and Ananda Lewis, was an original co-host of TRL , made the pilgrimage to the show’s Manhattan studio last week for the special he will reportedly produce alongside the countdown show’s original series creator, Tony DiSanto. EW reported that some vintage TRL -era stars were spotted near the studio last week, including JoJo, Mya, Ashanti, *NSYNC’s JC Chasez and Nelly.
TRL premiered on the once formidable music-video-turned-reality-TV network in 1998 and became must-see-TV for a generation of millennials, hosting daily countdowns of the top 10 most popular fan-voted music videos of the day, as well as in-studio performances, interviews and appearances by the biggest stars of the day, including *NSYNC, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Eminem, the Backstreet Boys, Limp Bizkit and more.
After paring back his participation in 2002 to host his late-night talk show Last Call with Carson Daly , Daly formally stepped down from TRL in 2005 and was replaced by a series of other hosts, including Vanessa Minnillo, Quddus, Hilarie Burton, La La Vasquez and others. Like the network that hosted it, by 2007, TRL had significantly faded in popularity and influence and was canceled in September 2008. A final, three-hour Total Finale Live special that aired on Nov. 16, 2008 featured appearances from Snoop Dogg, Nelly, Beyoncé, 50 Cent, Justin Timberlake, Aguilera, Taylor Swift, Eminem and many more.
MTV has attempted to reboot the franchise several times over the years, including for specials in 2014 and 2016, as well as in a shortened half-hour version in 2017 with hosts Liza Koshy, Eva Gutowski, Gigi Gorgeous, and others and later, ironically, as a prerecorded hourlong morning version retitled Total Request AM featuring SiriusXM radio host Sway. It gave the show one last shot in 2019 under yet another new name, TRL Top 10 , also hosted by former MTV News correspondent Sway.