NEW YORK - AUGUST 26: Sean "P. Diddy" Combs poses for a photo with (L-R) Dawn Richard, Aubrey ... [+]
One of the original hits of the early 2000s-reality TV era is coming back to television with a social media twist.
A berobed Sean "Diddy" Combs announced on Instagram that he's bringing "Making the Band" back to MTV — with the contestants for the group coming from open casting calls on social media.
In a video viewed more than a million times on Instagram and Twitter, Combs credits Wale and Seth Rogen for making him realize the show's impact and for empowering young talent. He also says overseeing "Making the Band" was one of the happiest times of his life; Cobs guided the show through three of its four iterations.
"You can't recreate happiness," he said. "No sleeping the trophy room. You have to be ready to do new things and change the game."
This round of band-building is launching with a very 2019 approach: an open call for auditions will be held through social media using video submissions tagged with #MTBCasting. (Combs said on Twitter he's already scrolling through auditions). And the show will be partnering with Smule to offer a curated playlist of songs that can be used to create video auditions, according to a press release.
"We're doing it social by design," Combs said in his announcement. "It's a different time than when 'Making the Band' was on before."
Combs says he wants the talent search to be global and hear from talent from all over the world.
"It's not just about America and America's music," he said. "It's about everybody's voice."
MTV executives are promising this run, which will air in 2020, will be "the biggest, most iconic season yet."
The show hit it big with audiences when it launched in the early 2000s, and stuck around through 2009. The original season, which focused on the Lou Pearlman-created boy band O-Town, capitalized on the wave of reality TV shows that hit specific industries. It gave a behind-the-scenes look at the music industry by showing what can happen when creative minds, big personalities and performance pressure collide.
From a brand standpoint, the show stood out for its cross-platform strategy — not many shows of that era had the ability to reach their audiences when they weren't on the air, but the added medium of music gave another layer of connection through listening to the show's music and attending shows.
Combs came on board in 2002 to oversee subsequent iterations that brought in the competition element, where he would ultimately select who made it to the band. With plenty of music and drama fueling the narrative, the shows next three seasons focused on the creation and progress of the platinum-selling Danity Kane, Da Band, Day26, and solo artist Donnie Klang.
The "Making the Band" revival is the latest programming addition for a network that's worked to resurrect itself under the leadership of Chris McCarthy. He joined MTV in 2016 and increased the focus on unscripted programming — and also brought an open mind toward new platforms.
"If we have failed anywhere in the past, it was worrying about one platform too much," McCarthy was quoted as saying in a May 2018 Forbes article. "Whether you're watching MTV on your phone ... or on traditional TV, you know, it's really about being a youth culture brand rather than any one platform."
As of 6:30 p.m. EST the day of the announcement, #MTBCasting had more than 2,600 posts on Instagram, with more videos coming through in a steady stream on Twitter.
