MTV kick-started a brand new period of music and popular culture in 1981, when it went on air for the primary time, emblematically enjoying “Video Killed the Radio Star” as its debut music video.
More than 4 many years later, the channel, now owned by U.S. media big Paramount Skydance, will wind down its worldwide music broadcasting by the tip of the 12 months because it struggles to compete with on-line streaming and social media.
MTV Music, MTV Hits and its ’80s and ’90s music exhibits shall be shut down within the UK and different European nations within the coming months, sources at Paramount confirmed to AFP.
These music channels will cease broadcasting on the finish of the 12 months in France, Germany, Poland, Australia and Brazil as properly, in keeping with numerous media experiences.
It has been declared the “end of an era” by dismayed followers and former MTV video jockeys — the beloved music presenters referred to as VJs who appeared on hundreds of thousands of screens on the the peak of the community’s recognition.
However, the situations that made MTV “revolutionary” merely “don’t exist anymore”, stated Kirsty Fairclough, a professor of display screen research at Manchester Metropolitan University.
The rise of digital streaming platforms like YouTube and TikTookay has “completely refigured how we engage with music and images”, the researcher on in style tradition informed AFP.
Viewers or listeners now anticipate “immediacy” and “interactivity” that sitting in entrance of the tv to look at rolling music movies can’t present, she added.
James Hyman, who directed and produced MTV Europe’s dance music exhibits within the Nineteen Nineties, agrees the community thrived earlier than the web was ubiquitous.
“It was so exciting, because that’s mainly all people had,” Hyman informed AFP.
Hyman was on the coronary heart of MTV’s Party Zone — which celebrated dance and membership tradition and performed up-and-coming techno, home and trance music — alongside MTV VJ Simone Angel.
Both of them left the community when MTV Europe cut up up into regional subsidiaries and pivoted from music programming to actuality exhibits within 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,” Dutch presenter Angel informed AFP.
According to British viewers researcher Barb, MTV Music reached round 1.3 million UK households in July 2025.
In comparability, Barb figures reported in 2001 confirmed MTV UK and Ireland’s package deal of music channels had reached over 10 million houses.
For Angel, MTV’s sluggish decline in recognition will be traced again to its transfer away from authentic, edgy music content material key to serving to smaller artists get away.
“Initially MTV Europe wasn’t just about making the most amount of money… that sense of experimentation made the channel very exciting,” stated the previous VJ.
Paramount has taken a number of cost-cutting measures since its merger with Skydance earlier this 12 months, asserting 1,000 job cuts final month and reviewing its different cable tv choices.
Some MTV music channels will keep on air within the United States, and the flagship MTV HD channel shall be out there within the UK, however with a concentrate on leisure relatively than music.
“The ‘M’ stood for music, and that’s gone,” lamented Hyman, who has rigorously saved VHS tapes of the exhibits he produced for Party Zone.
The tapes whir in Hyman’s VHS participant at his house in London, enjoying clips from the 90s: intimate interviews with The Prodigy and Aphex Twin, funky, experimental music movies, and wild hairstyles.
‘Seismic’ affect
The influence of MTV and MTV Europe was “seismic” in its heyday, stated Fairclough, bringing each well-known and up-and-coming artists into the houses of music followers around the globe.
“It definitely marks the end of an era in how music is experienced, both visually and culturally, because MTV really fundamentally reshaped popular music,” she stated.
Moments just like the premiere of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” music video and Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” efficiency on the first MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) in 1984 formed the cultural dialog.
“MTV was so powerful it defined youth culture,” stated Hyman, recalling its sweeping affect on style, movie and music in Britain and Europe.
Ever since news broke that the music channels had been going through the axe, Hyman and Angel have been urging Paramount to make archive tapes out there to the general public, insisting that folks nonetheless need their MTV.
“To me it almost feels like MTV has been on life support for such a long time,” stated Angel.
“But now that they’re actually threatening to pull the plug, we have all suddenly realised… this means too much to us.”
© 2025 AFP