Goodbye MTV

MTV is Shutting Down Its Last Music Channels, Marking the End of an Era

Paramount Global has delivered a devastating blow to music fans worldwide, announcing the permanent shutdown of five iconic MTV music channels by December 31, 2025 according to the BBC. For 44 years, MTV has been a cultural juggernaut, shaping youth culture, launching musical careers, and defining how generations consumed music, fashion, and pop culture. The closure of these beloved networks signals the end of an era that captivated audiences who once gathered around television screens, eagerly awaiting the next music video from their favorite artists.

The affected channels — MTV Music, MTV 80s, MTV 90s, Club MTV, and MTV Live — have long served as cherished hubs for music video culture across Europe and beyond. MTV Music, the flagship destination for music videos, has been a go-to for fans seeking the latest hits. MTV 80s and MTV 90s transported viewers back to the eras of synth-pop, hair metal, grunge, and bubblegum pop, offering nostalgic escapes through retro hits and iconic classics. Club MTV pulsed with dance music and electronic beats, catering to club culture enthusiasts, while MTV Live brought the energy of live performances and concert coverage to living rooms worldwide. These channels, each with its own distinct flavor, kept the spirit of music videos alive in an age increasingly dominated by streaming platforms.

The shutdown will begin in the United Kingdom and Ireland, with plans to phase out the channels in continental Europe and other international markets shortly after. While the main MTV channel will continue to operate, its focus has shifted dramatically in recent years. Once a music video powerhouse, it now leans heavily into reality programming like Catfish and The Challenge, leaving little room for the music content that defined its legacy. The decision reflects Paramount Global’s broader strategy to streamline its television portfolio, which also includes the closure of other networks like NickMusic EMEA, Comedy Central Extra, and Paramount Network.

For fans, the loss is profound. MTV’s music channels were more than just entertainment—they were cultural touchstones. They introduced the world to groundbreaking artists, from Madonna to Nirvana, and provided a visual platform for music that shaped global trends. The 80s and 90s channels, in particular, offered a nostalgic refuge, reminding viewers of a time when music videos were cinematic events. Club MTV and MTV Live kept the energy alive, celebrating dance culture and the raw power of live performances.

As the December 31 deadline approaches, fans are left to mourn the fading of a once-vibrant chapter in music history. The airwaves will grow quieter, and the music, as many fear, has died a little more.

This is a UK/EU-focused story, but I assume the same thing is happening in the US.

Why now? Why not 20 years ago?

Oh no, where am I gonna go to watch 17 hours of Ridiculousness in a row now?

My favorite memory of MTV was early in MTV2's career with the A-Z airing of (allegedly, though not really) every video in MTV's library. I left that on in the background for a long time.

genuinely did not know that MTV still had music channels

jon i remember that! in the early 2000s, just before the jump to digital reception, mtv2 showed on the regular antenna in reno/sparks. great reception, too. lots of times, that was my 'radio station' in those days. even then, it felt totally novel to have a channel exist just to exclusively show music videos. my only lament was the lack of hiphop/r+b.

goodbye jokes about mtv not playing music videos any more

I left that on in the background for a long time.

You would think just music videos would be successful channel still, for everyone with cable who doesn’t want Guy Fieri or ESPN on in the background. Guess not.

MTV is Shutting Down Its Last Music Channels, Marking the End of an Era

Not to discount the veracity of "cordcuttersnews.com" but we still have MTV Classic, MTV Live and MTV Tr3́s in America

kinda buried in the text but mtv will still be on, in its now-permanent reality show form, it's just the music channels going away:

'While the main MTV channel will continue to operate, its focus has shifted dramatically in recent years.'

just pointing that out for skimmers :)

We literally still have the music channels in the U.S.

Yes, we do. They still have them in Europe too, until 12/31. At this point there has been no announcement of changes in the US. But it's not 100% guaranteed that they'll stay on the air. MTV wiped its entire online news archive last year, remember.

I feel a pang of sadness but the MTV I knew/loved has been kinda gone for ages now

It's bizarre that they can't make it work, costs must be minimal for playing music videos, the record companies don't need paying, even if they're getting minimal views it would surely be easy to make a profit.

where are the Brits going to watch The Challenge now

The original BBC story:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdr612yz8p0o

But it's not so bad, because "the flagship channel, MTV HD, will remain on air, showing reality series including Naked Dating UK and Geordie Shore". That's okay then. It seems that Paramount is trying to save $500m.

The last time I watched it I remember the host was a model called Julia Valet, who was presumably much bigger in Germany, because it has been almost thirty years since I last thought about her. Someone has uploaded an entire show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yrt5qpoKFc0

Also, Kristen Johnston! She was nice. She has nothing to do with MTV. It's just that I'm going all nostalgic for the late 1990s.

I don't think I watched anything in late 2006 through to late 2007 as much as I watched MTV Dance. Somewhere I have a bunch of DVD-Rs of it, done October/November 06 IIRC. Probably I should rip them so I can stick the continuity on YouTube for the community there. Also I distinctly remember an ident with a pink tube man raving in front of some ancient B&W dance footage - with a switch in the soundtrack from swing to gabber, iirc - which I bet is on there somewhere.

how MTV withered away to next to nothing in the late 2000s would seem to me to be ripe for a big reported piece… although its important to keep in mind that the time and resources necessary to do such a report re: most subjects has also withered away to next to nothing… I worked there 25 years ago, everyone I knew there left many many years ago, and so I must think its pretty depressing to still be there… doing what? That the VMAs are still a certified thing? We can attest that to artists liking to get awards and to be seen, but it does seem odd that doing so also amounts to kissing the MTV's ring after 15 years of it being clear that kissing that particular ring isn't worth it.

I say this all the time, but I really do think Viacom's absolute fumbling of a brand as strong as MTV is just an all-time bungle

I feel like nu-metal was the last genre where the videos are central to making a band a hit (Limp Bizkit, Papa Roach). Maybe mid-00s emo that I mostly missed (though remember seeing My Chemical Romance videos in some public place that had MTV on).

It's really insane to absolutely fuck up a company who's entire content library was essentially FREE and had unlimited, unfettered access to every famous musician who ever lived and brand so strong that it became shorthand for an entire generation of movie- and ad-making, but that Real World Season 8 allure of broadcasting human trainwrecks was too strong to resist

xpost, videos were essential to mid-00s emo, but Fuse was eating MTV's lunch in that department

how MTV withered away to next to nothing in the late 2000s would seem to me to be ripe for a big reported piece…

You know, just living through this era, the answer may not even be as juicy as we'd like. The walls started crumbling around the music industry as early as Napster and MTV's lone strategy from, say, 1999-present was to just lean into whatever hit & abandon anything that didn't, lean into what is cheap to produce (reality TV) and abandon everything else (news). I'm sure if you did a cost/benefit analysis of what would be the most profitable think MTV could do as a channel right now, with their current resources, "playing Ridiculousness 24/7" would probably be incredibly high on that list

Just bailing water out of a ship for 25 years

agree on all that, my w1fe worked at mtv for 15 years and it was just overtaken by horrific management when it was the easiest "set-and-forget" game in town, all you have to do was change the damn playlist. of all the legacy cable brands that survived and thrived after rebooting, MTV being the one that completely fucked up really is one of the dumbest things.

I loved (and often also) hated MTV Europe but when a specific UK version launched around '96/'97 that felt like the beginning of a decline.

Sometimes I'm on YT specifically just to rewatch these kinds of high calibre 'bumpers'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M285A0dK6PQ

how MTV withered away to next to nothing in the late 2000s would seem to me to be ripe for a big reported piece…

i would agree it's probably not that interesting. the answer is that they should have embraced online video and easy to use popular platforms like yotube instead of trying to sue them out of existence but idk that's the story of like every broadcast TV channel/entertainment conglomerate that existed. they were all years too late.

i also don't really agree w/ the notion that MTV could have "saved itself" or something by leaning into music videos. the stratification of monoculture was coming one way or another and a platform like youtube that gives the individual artist the opportunity (and the strong incentive) to build an audience via subscribers to their own channel essentially runs counter to the entire concept of cable television and MTV's reason for existing. i think you could make an argument that smarter executives could have maneuvered the MTV brand to still be a player in the music video world even as it migrated online/to youtube but i have a really hard time envisioning a present day where MTV has like... significantly disrupted the concept of youtube (if you are an artist you can upload your music video w/o needing any institution)

one thing i will agree w/ whiney on is that places like viacom are so crazy insane about copyright, ownership of media etc when they should have leveraged their vast archives of historical video on social platforms in a way that could have helped make the mtv brand mean something in the current day. there's so many nostalgia based pop culture accounts w/ real followings on socials but places like MTV, rolling stone, spin etc were so bad and slow when it came to realizing the value of their archival content and mobilizing to put all that in front of new/younger audiences in ways that were relevant, eye catching etc to them

My UK persepctive: I only had terrestial television until I was 12. Going to somebody's house who had satellite/cable was a treat. But in those days there were only two music channels I can remember. MTV, and The Box. MTV had occasionally interesting shows on and they had all the Top Tens from around the world on their Teletext server which I found interesting, but there was also just a lot of dross. Whereas The Box - you could control it! You could pay 50p a minute to wait to connect and then hit 799 on your keypad then wait hours to see the video for "Set You Free" (the first time I called up, what a bizarrely specific memory).

I think The Box was way more influential than MTV in the UK for 90s/00s viewers. The biggest pop bands (Spice Girls, All Saints, S Club) did special versions of their music videos for the channel. I can't remember when my parents decided it wasn't worth the investment and we went back to having five channels but they were not wrong - I love music videos as an art form but apart from two episodes of The Simpsons at 7pm on Sky One that's all we watched on our 50+ channel package, and we could have basically used the radio to serve our needs instead.

What I did love about The Box was the "bundling" you had to encounter. So, if you wanted to see the new Garbage video or hear the long-awaited lead single from The Tamperer ft Maya's second album (what peculiar taste I had) then you also had to sit through the pop and the nu-metal hits. Which means there are videos for songs I loathe engrained on my memory. I never want to hear any Limp Bizkit ever again but I bet I could do a shot-for-shot description of the "Rollin'" video from memory. But it also meant exposure to things you wouldn't necessarily have been bothered by or encountered otherwise.

The Box closed down last year, and I think by the end you couldn't even request songs, it was just a video playlist. Utterly pointless in 2025 and I'm amazed it lasted as long as it did. You can feel sad about MTV, but you also have to ask - in the era where everyone carries a six inch screen in their pocket and can watch anything, any time, what purpose does it serve?

I can think of one specific reason: The MTV Chillout Zone show. I have a really vivid memory of being at my friend's grandparents' house to stay for a few days, and we all stayed up late one night, flicked through the channels and landed upon MTV. They were playing a selection of really cool French house - Mirwais, Les Rhythmes Digitales, maybe Alex Gopher but I can't be certain - and it was unlike anything I'd ever heard before. I grew up on Top 40 pop, Ministry Of Sound compilations and whatever indie music my parents were buying on payday. His grandparents didn't appreciate it all and my pal wasn't that into it, so we only saw 2.5 music videos, but I loved it and I remember being so jealous that they could watch a show with this kind of music at any time.

A few years ago I mentioned this to my boyfriend and he had a similar experience with MTV2 at his cousin's house - it wasn't available at home either, so the treat was seeing it elsewhere. We looked up MTV Chillout Zone on Youtube and found someone was recording contemporaneous whole episodes and uploading them, only editing out songs that caused copyright takedown issues. They were being shown on MTV GSA and each episode had a credit to whoever had compiled it, so some episodes were inevitably better than others depending on curatorial taste. But even at their least enjoyable there's something about them that's interesting - someone's curious taste, the way they've linked different types of music together, stuff you've never heard or even heard of. It's made a great springboard for deep dives into new musical territory for us. This is what MTV should be doing.

The MTV Chillout Zone has ended in Europe now. The website listing all the music played on it remains alive and up-to-date, even if the design seems straight out a Geocities template. I'm sure I read recently that on the new revamp of MTV in Europe the first two song played picked by producers was Cee-Lo Green's "Forget You."

Meanwhile, we have the Pluto TV app which we installed a few months ago. It has half a dozen MTV channels. One of them is called MTV Summer Hits and it literally is playing the same 30 songs on a loop in order. The other music channels on Pluto TV include Now 90s, and we've seen some interesting countdowns/themed shows on that, where they play less obvious and less well-remembered things. I'd love more of that kind of thing in general and it's why I'd rather listen to NTS or similar than an algorithm of identical generated songs.

Last week a friend of mine took me to the cinema: she's a Swiftie and wanted to see The Life Of A Showgirl release party. Regardless of how you feel about Taylor Swift, it was disappointing to see it was one music video and 11 lyric videos. The biggest popstar in the world with the most money doesn't even see the point in doing proper music videos any more. Even megahits like "Good Luck Babe" just have "visualisers" and I think that's so sad. Pop music is about music, but it's also about world-building and creative visions and fantasy and aspiration, and you just don't get that from text on a nice background over AI loops of celebrity faces.

I think J0rdan is right that it wouldn't have been able to save itself by leaning into music videos. But it could have become something different - they could have found creative ways to keep it as a brand with a singular and unique purpose.

Per what J0rd is saying, I remember at one point MTV was pushing to have the largest online database of music video anywhere around the early days of YouTube and that plan got abandoned for whatever reason and we all know how that played out for YouTube

the best non-music show MTV gave us was "Totally Scott-Lee." Coincidentally it is twenty years to the week that the best thing that has ever happened in a reality show happened.

Lisa Scott-Lee was the singer in UK pop phenomenon band Steps. They split, and she released solo singles to middling success. MTV approached her with a premise to film a documentary series, in the style of Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica. But whoever signed the contract was not paying attention because they clearly relinquished creative control to a sadist. Over eight thirty minute episodes, we get to see Lisa at her most pathetic, delusional and desperate, proped up by her useless husband, her creepy parents, and a sister-in-law whose career is moving upwards while she moves downwards. We see the family organise fake pap shots and have a release party ended by an irate neighbour.

MTV made a deal with Lisa as part of the filming: she had to have a top ten hit single with new song "Electric". which was written and recorded over the duration of the series. If it didn't crack the Top Ten then she was to retire from music. Lisa agreed, confident she would manage a hit single.

You can imagine how that went. Twenty years ago this week, the song went in at #13, and Lisa's reaction was broadcast live to the millions of viewers who couldn't help but laugh at this desperate woman's failure to hold on to hope and a career. On paper it sounds cruel and brutal, but she's such an unlikeable, grasping mess that it feels deserved.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSpEux8VLJ8

I grew up with MTV from the start, I used to come downstairs when I was 2-3 and turn on the TV to watch videos. Always on after (secondary) school in my house. We watched a lot of “MTV Europe” programming until MTV UK & Ireland launched? Like boxedjoy, probably the most prevailing benefit was being exposed to different stuff, which they did used to make an effort with. Ofc they fragmented the channels to cater for various tastes and such. Probably the most long lasting effect on my music taste before I had regular internet access was late night MTV. Have fond (?) memories of watching trippy videos at like 3am while making like €5/hour babysitting. I don’t know, again stressing the pre-internet side, that if I’d have been exposed to stuff like Aphex Twin, Add N to X or Squarepusher as a young teenager without late night MTV.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWCSw_cNxKc

^A classic video obviously. Actually you could chalk that down - getting to see music videos by people like Chris Cunningham and Jonathan Glazer.

Obviously produced some shows I loved back then as well like Daria which, eh, wouldn’t say had any abiding influence and Aeon Flux, which helped influence a whole load of stuff for me tastewise. I don’t think I’m into The Invisibles or Schiele without Aeon Flux.

I don’t think I watched it at all after I left home for college and basically stopped watching TV that I couldn’t pirate for years. But by then the daytime programming had become very bland and repetitive (the reason I didn’t listen to the radio as much) and you’d see the same twenty videos on repeatedly. Probably a mercy killing that they devolved a lot of time to producing reality programming if they weren’t going to make an effort with the video playlists.

Could see a pathway where MTV was profiting from events and access to artists and leveraging the brand in that way, but idk, like I wrote above, having regular internet access acted as a springboard for discovering stuff for me and allowed me to do so at a pace of my preference. Once you take away that aspect for a lot of people, what’s left besides the original reality shows?

Former MTV VJ Dave Holmes did a podcast on the history of MTV and what happened - it’s called I Want My MTv

Highly recommended for a good history especially of the downturn years

The Gavin Edwards oral history is good; I have the Craig Mar/kRob Tannenbaum book but haven't read it.

I just checked: Nirvana’s Unplugged album sold 12.5 million copies, and Clapton’s Unplugged sold 26 million copies and is the all time best selling live album. I know this was almost 35 years ago, but you could imagine most major stars doing Unplugged episodes now — I mean, SNL is still going. Feels like Tiny Desk took its place somewhat, without the album component.

would Unplugged 2.0 allow autotune?

one thing i will agree w/ whiney on is that places like viacom are so crazy insane about copyright, ownership of media etc when they should have leveraged their vast archives of historical video on social platforms in a way that could have helped make the mtv brand mean something in the current day.

I wonder if the rise of DVD and fall of CD sales around the time MTV "stopped showing videos" had something to do with the decline. From what I understand MTV basically got all those music videos for free, since they were basically ads and MTV was so popular. Did the faucet get turned off at some point? I mean, I get more people wanted to watch the Osbournes and Jersey Shore generally speaking, at some point. But even being crummy shows made on camcorders surely they weren't as cheap as a bunch of free music videos right? They were producing all kinds of shows (all these cartoons, etc) for years and years before they became irrelevant- even around the absolute peak years of CDs/physical media. They must have known it wouldn't last forever.

But anyway, about what you're saying- since they didn't own any of the music videos in the first place, and any concert type things they would have produced themselves would always have an additional layer of publishing/sync rights to re-negotiate in an era where songwriting royalties were hurting, I'm guessing the amount of vault stuff they can freely do whatever with is probably pretty small. Like, they can't even use real music for old seasons of Real World you can find streaming here and there.

MTV showed us that if the music goes away, The Real World takes its place, and then eventually the world gets taken hostage by a reality TV host. Thank you, MTV

I tried to do a full Real World watch through a few years ago. They really tried to make a thoughtful show in the beginning, well, kind of- in the sense that they initially were interested in portraying like, conversations lol. It jumps off the cliff into trashy pretty fast. They did a few reunion seasons- let's get that 1993 etc cast BACK IN THE HOUSE in 2015! etc- which are kind of insane to watch (good luck, they have been wiped from streaming services). The cast members return as either milquetoast brand activators or unhinged anatgonizers.

Sadly, it's basically impossible as maybe 1/3 of the seasons are completely unavailable and I don't think any of them have the original "real" music.

MTV showed us that if the music goes away, _The Real World_ takes its place, and then eventually the world gets taken hostage by a reality TV host. Thank you, MTV

Yeah, it is kind of funny that MTV’s legacy is 25 years of “they don’t even play videos anymore” and not accidentally ushering in an age of American fascism