Night Light | Ridiculous...

Sitting Down With Rob Dyrdek

Growing up, one of my favorite shows was Rob & Big (RIP Big Black). So, when I got the chance to tour Rob’s office and sit down with one of skateboarding’s biggest legends, it felt surreal. It was interesting to learn about how Rob went from being an 11-year-old skate phenom from Ohio to hosting one of the longest-running programs on MTV. I wanted to share more of what we talked about with all of you in this Week’s Night Light.

I’m still trying to learn a kickflip.

MTV is Ridiculousness

Over the last several years MTV has been airing an insane amount of Ridiculousness hosted by Rob. During lockdown we even saw weeks where the majority of all telecasts in a given week were Ridiculousness.

All the orange is Ridiculousness. My eyes hurt.

Nowadays, the channel isn’t as, well, ridiculous, but it still runs for a majority of the day. On today’s schedule, you’ll still find 10 hours of Ridiculousness because it controls a very large portion of their advertising sales. However, the real strength of the show (on linear) comes from back-to-back reruns, sometimes lasting 5-6 hours. 54 percent of US adults would rather watch channels running reruns of just one or a few popular shows. Outside of sports, people watching linear TV are fine with reruns; they even prefer it. This works well for MTV because they can keep costs down when they don’t have new episodes.

If you look at MTV’s schedule today you’ll only find a few shows that are in premieres and then a ton of reruns. I remember when TV channels would also be premiering new shows, live events, and specials. It’s just not where most of us go for entertainment anymore, we have streaming services and apps like TikTok and YouTube taking up all our attention.

Rob’s Recording Schedule

One of the craziest things to wrap my head around was that he and his team film an entire season (336 episodes) in an extremely small amount of time. They shoot 5 hours a day, 4 days a week, 10 months out of the year. They basically shoot every episode in only 40 minutes, whereas it used to take over 2 hours.

Rob’s team has gotten it down to a science where they’re able to pump out hundreds of episodes per year for MTV.

What’s Next for Rob

You should be checking out Build With Rob on YouTube or podcast platforms. It’s interesting that one of the first things he brings up is that he always wanted to make a show around his business philosophy, but it was getting lost in the sea of Ridiculousness on MTV. Recently, Rob has been working more on deeper philosophical projects, personal and professional growth, and encouraging his viewers to reach their goals.

He also spends a lot of time with his family 👍

The Big Takeaway:

Ridiculousness is still such a big part of MTV. There's a method to the madness of airing 6 hours of the show back-to-back. And while he’s found a lot of success on TV in the last 15 years, he’s also been working more to better himself and others around him. Truly a day I won’t forget for a long time.

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