MTV Video Music Awards Return to New York City in August

Months after the Grammy Awards returned to New York City for the first time in years, the MTV Video Music Awards are following suit.

The VMAs announced on its Twitter account Tuesday afternoon that the 2018 VMAs will be held at the iconic Radio City Music Hall on August 20 after spending a year away in Los Angeles.

“Get ready! The @MTV @vmas are returning to Radio City Music Hall on August 20!” the theater tweeted.

MTV also got in on the social media action, tweeting, “The 2018 @VMAs are heading back to @RadioCity on Monday, August 20! See you in NYC!”

MTV is spreading the word by charging through multiple city boroughs after planting a VMAs flag at Radio City, and the Moon Person will catch the first pitch at Tuesday’s New York Met’s game.

In between bouncing around Los Angeles, Miami and Las Vegas, the VMAs have been hosted in New York 16 times, including the inaugural ceremony in 1984. The upcoming 17th edition is the result of an agreement between MTV and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration, The New York Times reports.

The commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, Julie Menin, told the Times that awards shows rake in millions of dollars and economic benefits for the city — without having to spend any money to attract them.

“To be very clear, the city does not in any way write a check or put in dollars into attracting these awards shows,” Menin told the Times. “We believe that New York is such an attractive city for people to want to bring these shows to” that taxpayer-funded incentives are not necessary.

The news comes on the heels that MTV is not cancelling Total Requests Live, its newly-revived NYC-set video countdown show, despite an earlier cancellations report.

The show, better known as TRL, is actually expanding into multiple time slots, Billboard reports. MTV president Chris McCarthy revealed there will soon be morning and late-night versions of the music video countdown show.

As far as the morning version goes, McCarthy said to “imagine the Today Show, but through a music filter … [It will be] a pure one-hour music block that’ll be almost a visualization of your playlist, as well as performances and interviews.”

The reason for the expansion is said to be because of the way the show has reached a younger demographic each afternoon. MTV also has seen the show’s stream counts grow by triple digits and claims it drives 20 percent of MTV’s social engagements. That statistic put it above every other show on the network, including Teen Mom, The Challenge and Catfish.

Besides being described as a ratings success, McCarthy also claimed the TRL serving as a testing ground of sorts to drive their future growth.

“And [to] be honest with you, the most amazing thing has been that 300 kids come in the building everyday,” McCarthy said. “It is literally like a focus group for us every day. It’s a living laboratory and it’s part of what’s allowed us to move so quickly and evolve the franchise and capitalize on the growth. In many ways, because we’re live every day, we’ve been using it almost as a startup and it allows us to quickly evolve and it’s had a big role in driving our success.”