MTV News shutting down after 36 years

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published 10 May 2023

It's the end of an era for many Americans — but mainly for Gen X and millennials — who relied on MTV News for their entertainment and political coverage. The network has announced it will be shutting down after a 36-year run, a result of mass layoffs that tore through its parent company, Paramount Global.

Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios and Paramount Media Networks President Chris McCarthy announced Tuesday that the shuttering of MTV News was just a portion of the total job cuts happening across the entire company at this time, per CNN. Although the network's streaming efforts were a "success," McCarthy said in a staff memo that the company couldn't help but "feel pressure from broader economic headwinds like many of our peers."

"As a result, we have made the very hard but necessary decision to reduce our domestic team by approximately 25 percent," he told employees, according to Variety. "This is a tough yet important strategic realignment of our group. Through the elimination of some units and by streamlining others, we will be able to reduce costs and create a more effective approach to our business as we move forward. Today we will notify employees whose positions are being impacted with leaders communicating the news directly to those teams/or individuals. These meetings will be followed by individual 1:1s with our HR partners."

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MTV News was the engine behind some extremely iconic moments in entertainment history, one of the most notable being former President Bill Clinton's 1994 appearance on town hall Enough Is Enough, where he discussed violence in America, per The Hollywood Reporter. Ten years later, rapper P. Diddy interviewed former President Barack Obama, then just a state senator, in what was another memorable segment.

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Kelsee Majette has worked as a social media editor at The Week since 2022. In 2019, she got her start in local television as a digital producer and fill-in weather reporter at NTV News. Kelsee also co-produced a lifestyle talk show while working in Nebraska and later transitioned to 13News Now as a digital content producer.