(Special Report)

Written by: Cody Dennning   

Recently we have heard people talking about the MTV shutdowns, a few even saying that MTV is set to shut down entirely. This is not true, the original MTV will not be shutting down, however 83 percent of MTV's linear TV channels in the UK and Ireland are shutting down, here is the full story.

In a move that has took the public and music industry by surprise, parent company of MTV, Paramount Global, now under the ownership of the Ellison family, has confirmed the shutdown of five iconic MTV music channels by December 31, 2025. The closures of MTV Music, MTV 80s, MTV 90s, Club MTV, and MTV Live mark the end of an era for linear television's last bastions of nonstop video jockeying, signaling a decisive pivot away from MTV's rock 'n' roll roots toward the glossy, often contrived world of reality programming. As the network that once defined youth culture prepares to dim its musical lights, this development underscores broader seismic shifts in media ownership.

MTV has been changing hands for some time and in some of the public opinion, MTV has lost touch with the music community long ago. MTV's journey began in the cable television frontier of the early 1980s, but its transformative chapter under Viacom truly ignited its global phenomenon status. Launched on August 1, 1981, by Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment as the world's first 24 hour music video channel, MTV quickly outgrew its origins. Viacom, the media conglomerate behind Nickelodeon and other cable staples, swooped in with a $500 million acquisition in 1985, recognizing the network's potential to blend music, pop culture, and advertising in unprecedented ways. Under Viacom's umbrella, MTV exploded into a cultural juggernaut, spawning the Video Music Awards (VMAs),Beavis and Butt-Head and many others while expanding internationally.

The ensuing decades were a whirlwind of corporate reshufflings reflective of the consolidating media landscape. In 2000, Viacom merged with CBS Corporation to form ViacomCBS, only to split amicably in 2006 into separate CBS and Viacom entities amid antitrust scrutiny and strategic realignments. They got their way in 2019 as ViacomCBS, rebranded to Paramount Global in 2022. This iteration controlled a massive portfolio including CBS, Nickelodeon, BET, and, of course, MTV, with a heavy emphasis on streaming via Paramount+ to combat the world moving to streaming.

MTV changed hands again when Paramount Global was bought by the Ellison family, the tech dynasty led by Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, whose son David has, In a $8 billion deal finalized on October 1, 2025, David Ellison's Skydance Media acquired Paramount Global. The Ellisons aren't stopping there, shortly after the Paramount merger, reports indicate they're aggressively eyeing Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) in a potential $60 billion megadeal, complete with private equity backing to sweeten the deal. Not to mention the family recently purchased TIKTOK, we are not sure how they are navigating the antitrust laws.
For the Ellisons, it's a bold play to consolidate streaming, film, and news. MTV seems to not fit in this box.

MTV's musical DNA changed the world and over the years and changes of hands the brand lost its core values in favor of the lucrative, low-risk realm of reality television. Once the cradle of so many rock icons like Van Halen, Nirvana, Metallica, growing music through the 2000s, MTV's airwaves have been turned over to Jersey Shore, Teen Mom and Catfish, where manufactured drama takes priority over music began long ago. MTV's pivot feels less like evolution and more like a cold demise. The change in direction from MTV devised the music industry, all genres losing their #1 outlet, along with radio stations and press outlets following suit. This could be a war on music or the world changing either way, Artist and musicians need to come together to overcome.

Back to the shutdown, all though MTVs flagship channel will not close this will be a massive shutdown, affecting markets from the UK to Australia, Poland, France, and Brazil, this is no knee-jerk reaction but a meticulously planned excision from Paramount Skydance's post-merger blueprint. Cable viewership has cratered from 39% of total TV consumption in 2021 to just 24% in early 2025, a 3% nosedive in the last year alone, it’s not clear that MTV will be around much longer.

The UK closures alone will be devastating for employees, it's gut wrenching hundreds face layoffs in production and curation roles, with unions decrying it as a "cultural erasure" that prioritizes shareholder value over artistic heritage. Yet, executives frame it as adaptive.

The flagship MTV channel (including MTV HD) survives, morphing into a reality TV stronghold, in our opinion you can call this the RTV propaganda wing. Under the Ellisons MTV Networks aren't a "priority" in the master plan, per industry whispers, with focus tilting toward Skydance's film. Note A Warner Bros. acquisition, we dove into that, turns out Warner Music group, sold years ago and is not owned by Warner brothers, if the Ellison family gets Warner Brothers, this will not effect Warner Music Group.

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