Paramount, the parent company that owns MTV, announced that it will end broadcasting in the United Kingdom and Ireland starting December 31, 2025. After that, TV broadcasts will be stopped in global markets such as Australia, Poland, Germany, Benelux, France and Brazil in stages.
The move to end MTV operations is to reduce the company's operating costs by up to $500 million a year. The changing music landscape has made MTV no longer the main destination for watching music videos of favorite artists and it is now replaced by streaming platforms such as YouTube, TikTok and Apple Music.
In the UK, five channels, namely MTV Music, MTV 80s, MTV 90s, Club MTV and MTV Live, will be terminated on December 31. Only the MTV HD channel will be maintained, showing reality shows such as Geordie Shore. The MTV brand will still continue on social media with content still available to stream via the Paramount+ platform after this. While reports are still not confirmed, MTV will also be discontinued in Malaysia
MTV's identity as a music television channel has changed a lot since the early 2000s in line with changing viewer trends. Starting the new millennium, MTV is more famous for reality series such as Jackass, Jersey Shore, Real World, Singled Out and Ridiculousness. It replaced the MTV News news broadcast, which was famous for reporting the death of Kurt Cobain, and Total Request Live, which became the live broadcast series of choice for artists promoting music in the late 90s.
As a Generation X person, MTV for me is very synonymous with the MTV Unplugged series which popularized all acoustic genres and Headbanger's Ball which introduced me to many new music groups that were not heard on Malaysian radio.
MTV started their broadcast on 1 August 1981 with the music video Video Killed The Radio Star by The Buggles. But on 31 December 2025, it seems that the streaming of killed the video star also happened.
