MTV News will be shutting down after 36 years, according to an Instagram post made by media personality DJ Akademiks last night (May 9). The shuttering of the MTV News Division comes as a result of widespread layoffs across the iconic network’s parent company, Paramount Global. The decision to eliminate MTV News comes after an already drastic reduction in the news division in 2017, when the company decided to change its course of action to focus on short-form content and videos, stepping towards the network’s roots as a means to face competitors like Vice and BuzzFeed.
Chris McCarthy, head of Paramount Media Networks, Showtime, and MTV revealed in a staff memo that the shuttering of the News Production Division comes as a result of “broader economic headwinds” facing the entertainment industry, despite the network’s overall success. In an effort to cut costs, McCarthy shares that the media giant has “made the very hard but necessary decision to reduce [their] domestic team by approximately 25%.” McCarthy states that “Through the elimination of some units and by streamlining others, [the company] will be able to reduce costs and create a more effective approach to [the] business as [they] move forward.”
The End of MTV News
MTV News has been a leading news source for Generation X and Millennials since the ‘80s, embracing topics ranging from politics to pop culture, and acting as an alternative to traditional cable news. The news division of the emblematic entertainment group delved into topics that appealed to younger audiences, with programs like The Week in Rock, hosted by former Rolling Stone editor Kurt Loder, Profiles in Rock, Fast Forward, and more.
The layoffs follow recent cuts in the workforces of competing media companies such as NPR, Vox Media, The Washington Post, and more, as a result of the increasingly difficult economic climate of the entertainment industry as a whole. In April, Paramount was sued by actress and stand-up comedian Mo’Nique for unpaid royalties from the show The Parkers, which ran for five seasons on UPN. The lawsuit sees Mo’Nique seeking monetary damages, naming CBS, Paramount, and Big Ten Productions as defendants. The elimination of MTV News also follows the strike of the Writer’s Guild of America earlier this month, which received support from big names in the industry like Snoop Dogg, Drew Barrymore, Pete Davidson, and more.