MTV Channels to close

Infoanon

The closure of the European MTV channels on 1st Jan 2026 is now being reported as including the MTV UK and Ireland channels.

All MTV services are being reported as ceasing ie MTV,MTV Music, Club MTV,MTV 90s ans MTV 80s.

This will leave no music channels on Sky or VM EPGS with the EU legislation allowing the Now Channels to be added back has not be signed.…(Same would apply to the That music channels).

ImTiredOfItAll

I knew MTV studio was running because they make programming for other companies. I haven't seen MTV itself in over 20 years. I honestly thought it was already gone

mike2084

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058426370/mtv-channels-to-close

Never knew that legislation had been even proposed that could get them added back, would love the Now channels back on the EPG. It is a reworking of the European Convention on Transfrontier Television?

Strumms

just no requirement for MTV, people can choose their own music and media and when to watch / listen to it.

It was excellent in the mid ‘90’s when I was a teenager & early 20’s….

They actually had some presenters (vj’s) with personalities and individuality.

They attracted top bands and artists to come and play live in studio and be interviewed.

I recall earlier this year and switching it on and there was nothing. A load of old celeb tongue licking and reality stuff. Which you can see on loads of channels.

https://www.mtv.com/tv-schedule/mtv

^ Just a dying TV company with absolutely no effort being put into it.

34 programmes on their main channel MTV tomorrow, from only 3 different shows. No effort whatsoever and fûck all music...

Dan Steely

I enjoy the 80s channel.

lertsnim

I'm surprised they lasted so long.

EdmondShiels3

Not that they are as good as they once were. I will miss them. I am finding Sky is getting more expensive and less value for money with channels closing.

icdg

Although I find this fairly plausible, I can’t really find a source for it other than this Mirror article. It mentions that the main MTV channel (which hasn’t showed music in a long time) would remain.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/nostalgic-broadcaster-shutting-down-five-36043388.amp

Infoanon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123893979#Comment_123893979

BBC are now also reporting the story ,MTV HD to survive - the non music service.

The MTV channels we are viewing here in Ireland are the European version of the channels so once it was announced the European versions were closing the writing was on the wall unfortunately.

touts

Spotify killed the video star.

Gonzo

I don't think Spotify killed the Video Star, MTV Killed the video star. It started with the introduction of the regional versions, in our case MTV UK and Ireland. Once we lost the pan European service and replaced with the UK version it wasn't the same anymore. Gone were the quirky MTV animations, the European VJs and became UK/Ireland focused. The dedicated shows for the various genre's of music became watered down, they concentrated less on showing live segments from festivals and large tours. It was only a matter of time when the main MTV channel ditched music completely and just showed entertainment programmes which werent very entertaining and my interest MTV abandoned completely by 2005. The MTV specific music channels were watered down only showing a basic playlist and they always told you what song was coming next and there were no more surprises.

csirl

MTVs problem is that they're not MTV anymore. There is demand for channels showing purely music videos.

Infoanon

Paramount Skydance and the Accountants killed the video star....

The music channels still achieve circa 1 million viewers each in the UK and are not expensive to run (and receive a fee from Sky) ,it would appear that they just don't make enough money.

In other regions Nickelodeon, Comedy Central,the Paramount channel etc are been closed.

cheese sandwich

The old MTV Europe was great. The magic was gone when they set up a separate UK & Ireland channel in 1999 I think.

Some of the ads on the Euro channel in the mid-90s were weird. I have a vague memory of some guy advertising his new album by claiming he was so poor he had to eat cold baked beans straight from the tin. Did I completely imagine that?

its_steve116

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123900093#Comment_123900093

It was in 1997.

PixelCrafter

MTV's been irrelevant probably for well over a decade at this stage. It peaked in the late 90s/early 00s in this market and has been on a sharp downward trend since then. I'd say it's basically gone.

Strumms

Anyone remember Ray Cokes and his ‘MTV Most Wanted’ show ? Mixture of live music, guests, madcap off the wall humour and miscellaneous stuff and seemed all very…. ‘by the seat of their pants’…. in a fun way.

Always bemused me for a while after how Cokes never ended up with another regular / permanent show on TV, like on C4 or somewhere.. I know he’s done lots of radio, the odd guest spot on TV but I just think his off the wall madness and off the wall charm and relatability was perfect for something more permanent on our screens.

Gonzo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123900758#Comment_123900758

The Ray Cokes show on pan European MTV was the only non music show from MTV that I really enjoyed, it was alot of fun and indeed had some great live performances. The show was cancelled/ended before we transitioned to MTV UK and Ireland.

Rothko

Jello Biafra finally has his way.

cheese sandwich

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123901580#Comment_123901580

He had some sort of meltdown life on tv during a concert when people started throwing stuff at him. I think he had personal problems afterwards and disappeared from public view

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123900023#Comment_123900023

They need to be exceptionally low cost to survive. Paramount likely can't do that.

I've been told that the various Universal linked channels - Clubland and Now stations - are pretty much run by one person. Thats Media are also run on exceptionally tight staffing.

Tork

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123894374#Comment_123894374

YouTube was the first thought that came to my mind. YouTube and its videos were around before the free tier of Spotify launched in Europe.

Acosta

I remember being really excited when MTV 2 was launched back around 2000. Used to have to watch it at friends, as we didn't have Sky Digital at the time. That was pretty good for a while. Before that, as a teenager i watched a fair chunk of MTV UK. Alternative Nation, Donna Air, Richard Blackwood(painful!), Zane Lowe, Kat Deely, Eddie Temple Morris etc

Nowadays, the odd time I'd stick in on when 80s stuff is on, when I come in from the pub. But, it's too easy with YouTube to select what you want

Strumms

Eddie Temple Morris was great fun, he’d often be trying to just say his piece to camera and just really struggling to keep from breaking down in complete hysterics… What was the show ? MTV ‘Up For It’… yep, thanks google. According to Wiki he’s 60 now 😵‍💫

PixelCrafter

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123906402#Comment_123906402

M2 / MTV2 was really cutting edge for a time - then MTV started becoming obsessed with reality shows and that was the end.

I'm always amazed someone didn't have the foresight to see that MTV could have been a huge online streamer, but I suppose like every other big old established company, they never saw the business model change coming.

It was a HUGE brand back in the 80s, 90s and early 00s.

L1011

The reality shows didn't even actually work - their viewership was already sliding when they started going down that route and it has kept sliding since. Changing to reality TV did not bring it back; if anything it alienated their normal viewership and they had to find a new one.

They coasted for ~20 years on the previous 15 years or so of brand building.

They should have cut in to a music channel and a reality channel very early on; by the time they did it was too late - and the music channel was just jukebox videos rather than basically being original MTV minus the few bits of non-music content that they'd always had.

I believe the US channel is worse, where some days it is literally 48 episodes, sometimes 48 repeats, of the same show in a given day. A show that is basically You've Been Framed, but taking clips off the internet.

Irish Gunner

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123900758#Comment_123900758

I remember back in the late 90's they did live feed in Dublin to major Tom's pub. Prizes on show and one was a crate of beer. They lifted the blanket to reveal it and all the punters, including yours truly, just went up and started helping themselves and Ray cokes laughing in the studio

GF at the time was watching it and it's out there on VHS somewhere but can't find it even on YT. My wife thinks I'm making it up but it did happen

PixelCrafter

They definitely alienated viewers with the shift to endless reality tv on the main channel - I don’t think the current management has very much to do with what the channel once was. There’s only so much milking an old band’s cool that you can do.

I think there was also a push of the U.S. formats on MTV Europe channels, which had never been successful here in the first place. In the early days of MTV in Europe they were floundering with the U.S. approach not really gaining traction this side of the Atlantic. They brought in the brightest in the business, largely London based but from right across Europe too, and they reformatted with a set of very on trend VJs and shows that were based largely on some of the most successful music radio formats of the time and the vibe of edger music formats on the likes of BBC 2 and Channel 4 - music focused, a lot about discovering new music, energetic, an edgy, youthful and even a bit geeky vibe and suddenly MTV Europe had developed its own personality and was coming across as effortlessly cool. All of that’s gone now. It’s about as cool as a bunch of media executives trying to profit off the nostalgia of someone else’s clubbing days.

Ultimately they just never made the leap from TV to the internet despite having actually had a lot of potential to do that and having been one of the early adopters of the web they just seemed to not quite get it, the talent has long since moved on, and the audience evaporated. Music listening and discovery has long since gone elsewhere.

It’s an opportunity lost in the sense that it lost momentum and direction, but that’s just the way things go. Probably at this stage just best remembered when it was in its heyday.

SartreAndSocrates

As much as I like the idea of having TV channels that show music videos, it's just not really a thing anymore in this internet age. A shame too, considering how important MTV and the like were to music.

There was something magical about watching music videos on Kerrang or MTV though. I discovered so many new bands/music back then before I had internet in my own house, which was considerably late compared to most of my peers.

It just worked for me. We have all the music videos on YT on hand but it's just not the same. I think having less actually made it more special, in a way. All those top 100 rock videos were fun.

PixelCrafter

I think the whole era of satellite / cable TV is basically coming to a rather unspectacular end. MTV winding up services is just part of a broader thing.

We’re going to likely mostly be watching a number of core channels with live and near live programming - actually where the RTEs and BBC like stuff will survive, but a lot of linear tv is just not relevant anymore.

My guess is most households will have a mix of the core networks and streaming services making most of the commercial content, with traditional Sky having faded away, having tried to be an aggregator with Sky Stream. The cable companies are already primarily about broadband but I think Sky is in a very vulnerable position - they own no infrastructure really at all: no cables/fibres, no mobile network infrastructure, no satellites… all they are really is a band that repackages, aggregates and piggybacks services on other companies’ infrastructure.

eviltimeban

I was reading in the WSJ that Paramount execs are looking at ways to revive the brand. I wonder would an option be to launch their own streaming service, a la Apple + and Prime, but focus ENTIRELY on music.

So, not only could artists / labels upload their entire catalogue of music videos for users to browse (like Spotify, but also, it has to be said, like YouTube), but MTV themselves could feature their own back catalogue of shows like Unplugged, Live and Loud, the VMAs, and then relaunch those shows with newer artists. How big would the viewership be if there was an exclusive Taylor Swift unplugged show for instance (and that exclusivity meant it wasn't available on YouTube)?

They could also buy the rights for the Classic Albums series, delve into the VH1 archives (which they also own) and that would include shows like Storytellers and Behind The Music, and again make new versions of them with today's artists. They may also be able to buy the rights to broadcast festivals over the summer (though Glastonbury might be out of reach).

Sure, it wouldn't be for free but YouTube and Spotify aren't for free either. But if all of that was available at the touch of a button, in HD rather than a small computer screen, for like €6.99 a month, I'd pay for it.

A mixture of archival content for the older viewers, and new content to bring in subscribers, could be a way to do it.