MTV Times Square studio to close its doors?

For those of you who used to come home everyday after school and turn on the TV to watch “Total Request Live” like I did, today is a sad day. The New York Post reported that MTV and its parent company, Viacom, did not renew the lease on its iconic studio at 1515 Broadway in the heart of Times Square. This means that the glass-walled flagship studio, which was famously known as the stomping grounds of teenyboppers and screaming fans hoping to catch a glimpse celebrities and oh yeah, that guy who hosted the show, Carson Daly, may no longer be in existence come the end of the year. Cue high-pitched wail by tweens everywhere.

However, there is still time for MTV and Viacom to make a bid on the space. Should they not renew the lease in the next few weeks, the management company, SL Green, says they will be putting the space on the market and MTV will need to move out by the end of the year.

Perhaps the studio doesn’t serve much as much of a purpose as it used to after TRL went off the air last November. With the price of the studio costing almost 12 times more than what it was in 1997 when MTV acquired it (the space used to cost a mere $40 per square foot, but now is as high as $450 per square foot), it seems pointless for MTV to keep holding on to a studio that they don’t use daily.

Still, with memories of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera battling it out for the top spot and the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC shutting down blocks across Midtown when they visited the studio, I can’t help but feel that a piece of my teenage years just died. 

- Sabina for AMP3 Public Relations