MTV, the music video channel that redefined how musicians presented themselves to the world, will cease operation of five of its channels in the UK and Ireland at the end of 2025.
Paramount, MTV’s parent company, will pull the plug on MTV Music, MTV 80s, MTV 90s, Club MTV and MTV Live on December 31. The channels are also expected to go off the air in Germany, France, Austria, Poland, Hungary, Australia and Brazil at a later date. Operations of MTV India remain unaffected.
According to BBC, the closures come as the company aims to cut costs by as much as $500m across its global portfolio. In August, it closed Paramount Television Studios, which produced series including action thriller Jack Ryan.
MTV changed the music landscape on August 1, 1981, with the airing of The Buggles’ Video Killed the Radio Star, which inspired the Bappi Lahiri-Usha Uthup song Koi Yahan Aha Nache Nache from Disco Dancer (1982).
MTV’s arrival proved a youth-culture juggernaut, and on everyone’s lips was the line “I want my MTV.” Even Dire Straits fell under its spell when they wrote Money for Nothing (“Now look at them yo-yos, that’s the way you do it/ you play the guitar on the MTV”).
Viewership of the channel shot up — and so did the cost of making videos — with iconic releases such as Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Bad, Smooth Criminal and Beat It.
The channel also brought about innovation with MTV Unplugged, which showcased artistes like Rod Stewart, Nirvana, Oasis and Lauryn Hill performing acoustic or “unplugged” versions of their songs.
Music videos found a new home when YouTube arrived in 2005, and over the decades, it hastened MTV’s decline, turning it into a destination for pop and rock classics, alongside reality shows.
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was aware of MTV’s influence on young people in communist countries behind the Iron Curtain in the 1980s. In 2009, he was honoured with MTV’s Free Your Mind award for his role in the fall of the Berlin Wall.
MTV India launched in 1996 and soon introduced unique properties such as MTV Immies, MTV Music Summit for AIDS, Style Awards, MTV VJ Hunt and MTV Roadies. Its
main competition was Channel [V] India.
