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."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
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.
-
The UK’s ‘wallaby boom’Under the Radar The Australian marsupial has ‘colonised’ the Isle of Man and is now making regular appearances on the UK mainland
-
Fast food is no longer affordable to low-income AmericansThe explainer Cheap meals are getting farther out of reach
-
‘The money to fix this problem already exists’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Hungary’s Krasznahorkai wins Nobel for literatureSpeed Read László Krasznahorkai is the author of acclaimed novels like ‘The Melancholy of Resistance’ and ‘Satantango’
-
Primatologist Jane Goodall dies at 91Speed Read She rose to fame following her groundbreaking field research with chimpanzees
-
Florida erases rainbow crosswalk at Pulse nightclubSpeed Read The colorful crosswalk was outside the former LGBTQ nightclub where 49 people were killed in a 2016 shooting
-
Trump says Smithsonian too focused on slavery's illsSpeed Read The president would prefer the museum to highlight 'success,' 'brightness' and 'the future'
-
Trump to host Kennedy Honors for Kiss, StalloneSpeed Read Actor Sylvester Stallone and the glam-rock band Kiss were among those named as this year's inductees
-
White House seeks to bend Smithsonian to Trump's viewSpeed Read The Smithsonian Institution's 21 museums are under review to ensure their content aligns with the president's interpretation of American history
-
Charlamagne Tha God irks Trump with Epstein talkSpeed Read The radio host said the Jeffrey Epstein scandal could help 'traditional conservatives' take back the Republican Party
-
CBS cancels Colbert's 'Late Show'Speed Read 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' is ending next year
