MTV is closing its international music channels after 44 years, marking the end of an era as the network struggles against digital streaming platforms like YouTube and TikTok.
LONDON: MTV will wind down its international music broadcasting by the end of the year, signalling the end of an era for the channel that revolutionised music and pop culture in 1981.
The network, now owned by Paramount Skydance, will shut down MTV Music, MTV Hits and its 80s and 90s music shows in the UK and other European countries in the coming months.
Similar closures will occur in France, Germany, Poland, Australia and Brazil by year’s end, according to various media reports.
Dismayed fans and former MTV video jockeys have declared it the “end of an era” for the network that once defined youth culture worldwide.
Kirsty Fairclough, a professor of screen studies at Manchester Metropolitan University, said the conditions that made MTV revolutionary “don’t exist anymore”.
The rise of digital streaming platforms has “completely refigured how we engage with music and images,” she told AFP.
Viewers now expect “immediacy” and “interactivity” that traditional television music channels cannot provide.
James Hyman, who directed MTV Europe’s dance music shows in the 1990s, agreed the network thrived before the internet became ubiquitous.
“It was so exciting, because that’s mainly all people had,” Hyman told AFP.
Both Hyman and former VJ Simone Angel left when MTV Europe split into regional subsidiaries and shifted from music to reality shows in the early 2000s.
“I was heartbroken when it started to split up into different regions. To me that was like the beginning of the end,” Angel told AFP.
According to British audience researcher Barb, MTV Music reached around 1.3 million UK households in July 2025.
This compares to over 10 million homes reached by MTV UK and Ireland’s music channels in 2001.
Angel traced MTV’s decline to its move away from original, edgy music content that helped smaller artists break out.
“Initially MTV Europe wasn’t just about making the most amount of money… that sense of experimentation made the channel very exciting,” she said.
Paramount has implemented several cost-cutting measures since merging with Skydance earlier this year, including 1,000 job cuts last month.
Some MTV music channels will remain on air in the United States, while the flagship MTV HD channel will continue in the UK with an entertainment focus rather than music.
“The ‘M’ stood for music, and that’s gone,” lamented Hyman, who still keeps VHS tapes of his Party Zone shows.
Fairclough described MTV’s influence as “seismic” during its heyday, bringing both famous and emerging artists into homes worldwide.
“It definitely marks the end of an era in how music is experienced, both visually and culturally,” she said.
Iconic moments like Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” premiere and Madonna’s 1984 VMA performance shaped cultural conversations for decades.
“MTV was so powerful it defined youth culture,” said Hyman, recalling its sweeping influence on fashion, film and music.
Since news of the closures broke, Hyman and Angel have urged Paramount to make archive tapes available to the public.
“To me it almost feels like MTV has been on life support for such a long time,” said Angel.
“But now that they’re actually threatening to pull the plug, we have all suddenly realised… this means too much to us.”
