Time Inc’s INSTANT Brand Launches A ‘TRL’ Analogue For Musical.ly’s Live.ly

Since its launch during last year’s VidCon, Time Inc.’s INSTANT brand has provided a platform through which the major media company can engage with the global community of online video stars in a mobile-friendly way. The latest manner in which INSTANT is accomplishing that goal is IRL, a new Live.ly series that looks to bring the spirit of MTV’s classic program Total Request Live (TRL) to the world of social video.

IRL is a 45-minute program that will run each Thursday at 7 PM EST on INSTANT’s officially Live.ly channel. Live.ly, a mobile streaming platform launched last year, is related to the wildly popular Musical.ly app, which has spawned its own cadre of youthful, charismatic stars. Those creators, as well others who are making hay of Musical.ly and its mobile-live brethren, will be highlighted in IRL episodes, just as TRL highlighted Top 40 tastemakers across more than 2,200 episodes. As with its MTV analogue, IRL

will make use of a countdown format to tell viewers what’s hot each week.

Much of INSTANT’s work has been done in partnership with online video stars, and IRL is no different. Top creators will regularly appear as guests on the series, with multi-talented musician Ricky Dillon showing up in the premiere. Future episodes will feature Teala Dunn, Jessie Paege, and JoJo Siwa, among others.

Musical.ly is only one platform Time Inc. is hoping to leverage through INSTANT. The brand has also been very active on YouTube, where it has posted more than 900 videos since its June 2016 launch. Many of those clips have featured digital influencers.

The first episode of IRL launches on April 27th.