broadwaypocalypse

It’s the End of an Era: MTV Is Planning to Leave Iconic Times Square Studio

The good ol’ days.

When MTV stuck a fork in their long-running TRL franchise late last year, we hoped that the network would find a way to continue to utilize their famous studio that looks out over Times Square, the one where tens of thousands of boy-band fans used to converge in the early aughts whenever the Backstreet Boys or *NSYNC stopped by to chat with Carson Daly. For a while there, we had hoped the It’s On With Alexa Chung program was going to be broadcast live from the iconic locale, but the network ended up deciding to utilize another studio in the building to house the program. And now, according to a report in today’s New York Post, it looks as if MTV’s parent company, Viacom, is going to let their lease on the space expire at the end of this year. Even though Viacom continues to turn a pretty healthy profit — some $277 million in the second quarter of this year alone — it appears the network is no longer willing to shell out the estimated $11.6 million it costs to rent the space on an annual basis. Bummer! Now where are we going to leave the photo collages of Nick Lachey that we painstakingly create each and every Saturday?

Broadway Blues [NYP]

It’s the End of an Era: MTV Is Planning to Leave Iconic Times Square Studio