Is MTV’s fourty year history ending?
Recent social-media posts claiming that MTV shut down completely on New Year’s Eve after more than 40 years on the air are inaccurate. MTV as a brand did not cease to exist. What did happen is more specific and region-focused.
In late 2025, Paramount Skydance (MTV’s parent company) officially discontinued several of its dedicated 24-hour music television channels in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and other international markets. These included MTV Music, MTV 80s, MTV 90s, Club MTV, and MTV Live, all of which stopped broadcasting on December 31, 2025.
These closures marked the end of decades of continuous music-only programming on linear television in those regions, with the final video on some feeds being the original first MTV clip, “Video Killed the Radio Star.”
However, the main MTV channel, including international feeds like MTV HD remains on the air. These channels now focus primarily on reality, pop culture, and entertainment programming rather than full-time music videos.
In the United States and Canada, MTV channels continue to operate normally and have not been shut down, although corporate leadership has indicated that performance and strategy for these markets may be evaluated going forward.
MTV did not shut down entirely on New Year’s Eve. What ended at the end of 2025 was the broadcast of several of its international music-focused channels, not the brand or flagship MTV service globally.
Fans of Drag Race can rest easy, but the rest of us who grew up on MTV and the iconic music videos will have to, well, go watch Youtube.
Note: POPrepublic.tv was a media partner of MTV Australia in the early 2000’s.
Apart from being the founder and creator of POPrepublic.tv, Robert is an entertainment reporter, journalist and on air talent. He studied TV Presenting at NIDA and journalism and communications at USC. He has hosted red carpets globally, including the MTV Awards, Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards, TONY Awards and other global events like Mardi Gras and NYC Pride. He was the host and executive producer of POPrepublic TV (a co-production with CBS Interactive) and has appeared on many TV shows, including the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, the Emmy award-winning episode of Kathy Griffin’s My Life on the D-List and Bravo’s The A-List New York.
