'Total Request Live' not so live anymore

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

It's another sign of how both the audience and cultural juice have faded for "TRL," once the most influential program on television for music superstars from the Backstreet Boys to Beyonce — even if they just dropped by to push an ice cream cart.

Three 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.

"We're not editing anything. ... The spirit of the show is going to be exactly the same," said spokeswoman Marnie Black.

The TV term is live-to-tape, which is how programs hosted by David Letterman and Jay Leno 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, the third longest-running program in the network's history. 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.

Artists go to "drop" new music, movie stars to tout new films and celebrities just to stay celebrities — sometimes to disastrous effect. Mariah Carey's surprise appearance in 2001 pushing an ice cream cart filled with Popsicles was so odd she checked into a hospital for "exhaustion" a week later.

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

So far this year, the show averages 351,000 viewers. The 12-to-17-year-old audience is only 113,000, half what it was only two years ago.