MTV's "TRL" now only live three days a week

NEW YORK — MTV's "Total Request Live" is no longer totally live.

It's another sign of how the audience and cultural juice have faded for "TRL," once the most influential TV program for music superstars.

Two weeks ago, MTV began taping "Total Request Live" two days a week in an effort to save money. After live shows air Monday and Wednesday afternoons, shows are then taped for the following day.

The television term is live-to-tape, which is how late-night programs hosted by David Letterman, Jay Leno and Jon Stewart are done. For "TRL," it's still a significant change for a show that touts its interactivity with the audience, who vote online for their favorite videos.

"TRL" is one of MTV's landmarks. It nailed the cultural zeitgeist upon its September 1998 debut, becoming the epicenter of the teen-pop scene with Britney Spears, N'Sync and the Backstreet Boys. So many fans crowded the streets outside MTV's studio for an October 1998 appearance by the Backstreet Boys that police briefly shut down Times Square.

At its peak in 1999, "TRL" had 757,000 viewers a day, with 346,000 of them aged 12 to 17, according to Nielsen Media Research.

So far this year, the show — now seen at 3:30 p.m. — averages 351,000 viewers a day, Nielsen said. The 12-to-17-year-old audience is only 113,000, half what it was only two years ago.

"TRL" still has cachet but is now only one of many places that music executives try to break a new artist. The most prominent destinations are now online, said Jon Caramanica, music editor at Vibe magazine.