The New York Post reports that MTV is vacating its Times Square studio space.
MTV’s parent, Viacom, didn’t renew its studio lease when it extended its lease on more than 1 million square feet of offices at 1515 Broadway, between 44th and 45th streets, last year. And while it could still make an offer on the space that’s now possibly 10 times more costly than it was 12 years ago, it has not yet done so.
At an estimated cost of about $11.6 million a year, you can understand why Viacom (who like most media companies, has struggled in recent times) would look to move elsewhere; when the company first leased the space back in 1997, Times Square was going through a period of transition, and as an insider told the Post, rent for the 22,216-square-foot second-floor studio might have been as low as $40 per square foot.
Still, with that show that’s not TRL being hosted by that British woman whose name I can never recall, it feels like the end of an era, right? 1515 Broadway was one of the only New York “addresses” I had committed to memory before moving to the city. Will they be forced to renamed MTV News 1515? Where will the throngs of confused tourists/overexcited tweens rubberneck now?
Suddenly I feel like I need a hug from Kurt Loder. Or Serena Altschul. Or Tabitha Soren. Or even Carson Daly…
Comments (3)
Hallelujah! There's hope for this town yet!
cray cray. i want the hug from carson.
[...] When I arrived in New York nine years ago—a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed platinum blonde—the first thing I did was drop off my resume at MTV’s iconic Times’ Square offices. Since then, I feel it’s safe to say, MTV has sort-of gone to shit—not because they didn’t hire me or anything, but because what was once a place for cutting-edge videos and obscure music news became a place for people like Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt (and MTV’s parent company, Viacom) to cash in on conventional hotness and douchebaggery. But apparently the cash isn’t flowing as freely as it once was. MTV’s parent, Viacom, didn’t renew its studio lease when it extended its lease on more than 1 million square feet of offices at 1515 Broadway, between 44th and 45th streets, last year. And while it could still make an offer on the space that’s now possibly 10 times more costly than it was 12 years ago, it has not yet done so. [NY Post via Flavorwire] [...]
Post a new comment