Francesca Bacardi, writing at Page Six:

A spokesman for the Riverside Police Department in California confirmed to Page Six on Monday that Camp, whose real name is Josiah Camp, was reported missing on July 19 by his sister. Friends and family have been sharing concerned messages on social media, asking anyone for information on his whereabouts.

Camp, 38, rose to fame in 1998 when he became an MTV VJ after winning the network’s first “Wanna Be a VJ” contest. He had previously been homeless.

MTV will be bringing back TRL while they attempt to stay relevant:

Then in October, MTV will unveil the revival of “TRL.” The original iteration — which featured a countdown of music videos, a studio audience and frequent appearances from star musicians — was, in a way, a throwback itself, an updated version of “American Bandstand.”

The newer version of “TRL” will initially run an hour a day, and Mr. McCarthy said that might grow to two to three hours a day as the show developed. (There will also be unique daily content for Instagram, Snapchat and other social media channels.)

I remember watching TRL when I was younger. I watched it because there was a chance Blink-182, New Found Glory, or Sum 41 would make it onto the countdown and I’d get to see thirty seconds of their video. One of the main reasons I started AbsolutePunk.net was so that I could catalog music videos for bands I loved in a place where everyone could find them easily. Thankfully, YouTube ended up doing all that way better than I could have ever dreamed.

What TRL did well was become a destination for any artist starting their album cycle. If you wanted a shot at breaking out, you had to appear on the show and do an interview/video debut/live performance. This worked great when MTV was one of the only gatekeepers for the music industry. New album information for a select group of artists could break on TRL. Now, with access to more video (and news) content for bands than I could ever consume in a lifetime on the internet, I wonder what the hook will be for TRL that makes it worth watching. As someone that barely watches any live TV, I’m skeptical about the demand for these kinds of shows. Finding the small communities, video channels, and/or podcasts that are tailored to your specific listening habits just seems more interesting to me.

MTV have announced their VMA nominees.

Read More “MTV Announces VMA Nominees”

Jordan Sargent, writing at Spin, with a detailed look at the what happened over at MTV News:

It was a fairly gentle critique of a band who, pretty much anyone would agree, is no longer putting out its best music. Still, the article became an immediate source of trouble for MTV and it was quietly deleted after the band raised concerns with executives at the network. […] Hopper called a staff meeting two days later to discuss the situation. According to an ex-staff member who attended the meeting, Hopper explained that the band became aware of the article and threatened to remove itself from the MTV Europe Music Awards.

And:

Conversations between senior staff and artist representatives on the topic of what would be accepted on the site happened with some regularity. On July 5, 2016, Hopper told the staff that MTV was attempting to book DJ Khaled for various unknown projects, telling the staff that they might have to “nix” any writing on the producer “unless it’s like, KHALED IS GREAT.” Elsewhere, interference from artist reps was so pervasive that some MTV News editors spent part of this past New Year’s Eve haggling line-by-line with a chart-topping, platinum-selling, Grammy-winning female pop star’s publicist over a post in which MTV’s editors eventually agreed to cut one sentence.

What a complete shit-show.

MTV News is laying off a bunch of their writing staff to shift toward video and short form content for a younger audience. Variety reports:

Among the most significant changes — MTV has reached an agreement with the Writers Guild of America East to represent MTV News staff members. As part of that agreement, MTV News is parting ways with fewer than a dozen staffers and several freelancers. The news division is in the process of hiring additional personnel to focus on video and short-form content.

I actually thought MTV had been putting out some pretty good written content over the last year. A shame to see how difficult making money online has become for most publishers.

Hazel Cills, writing at MTV:

While male producers and musicians like Philip Glass and Steve Reich have been written about and documented extensively, the work of female producers and early electronic musicians like Wendy Carlos, Laurie Spiegel, Delia Derbyshire, and more have essentially been ignored and undervalued by music historians. To combat the stereotype that production is solely a man’s job, The Blow created an online archive, womanproducer.com, to collect photos and clips of female producers in history. Recently, the archive has expanded into a live event series at Brooklyn’s National Sawdust, featuring performances and talks by artists like Zola Jesus, Neko Case, and more.

Elias Leight, writing for Rolling Stone:

MTV plans to rebrand VH1 Classic as MTV Classic starting on August 1st. According to a statement from the company, the new channel will focus on “an eclectic mix of fan-favorite MTV series and music programming drawn from across its rich history, with a special focus on the 1990s and early 2000s.”

All of our childhoods one day become “classic.”