No, MTV is not shutting down, though Paramount Skydance did shutter some all-music video channels in various markets. But never mind: the internet can best even vintage MTV. Tune into MTV REWIND and hit shuffle by decade.
Let’s set the tone by going back to the very beginning:
It’s weird how long we’ve been talking about the demise of MTV. The network’s early years became a mainstream platform not just for music videos, but all kinds of experimental filmmakers, animators, and even poets. It helped mainstream avant-garde edits and video processing. There’s even academic research on the topic:
The ‘Quasi-Artistic Venture’: MTV Idents and Alternative Animation Culture
More:
A brief history of MTV IDs and the impact they’ve had on the creative world [Ayla Angelos at itsnicethat]
But it was also a commercial platform for the industry from the start. By the 90s, MTV and VH1 had already begun a shift to more reality TV programming — arguably one of the planks that laid the groundwork for the takeover of the current US President, turning the USA into some kind of reality television nightmare. And that meant squeezing out all those music videos and creative use of the medium. Freaking out about this in 2026 is a bit odd, as your time machine setting to go Marty McFly on an MTV exec would be 1992:
Now, the current situation with MTV has been exaggerated online, but it’s not wrong. “MTV” is not shutting down, and it does seem you’ll still be able to tune into music videos. But MTV, like all major media properties, now faces the same corporate finance juggernaut that’s killing off joy and freedom everywhere. And the news on this broke months ago.
The Borg, uh, sorry, “Paramount Skydance,” announced that cost-cutting measures would mean switching off MTV Music, MTV 80s, MTV 90s, Club MTV, and MTV Live in the UK and Ireland. Australia, Poland, France, and Brazil will also see cuts of some music-only channels. Separately, they also announced they were axing the MTV Europe Music Awards and MTV Latin America’s MIAW Awards.
From October in Euronews, around the announcement:
The end of an era: MTV music channels to be switched off across Europe by end of 2025 [Euronews]
And on New Year’s Eve, Rolling Stone did a good write-up, in contrast to a lot of the misinformation and AI slop about this online:
MTV’s Music-Only Channels Are Officially Going Dark
Here’s the irony. The fact that the news that “MTV is shutting down” went viral, including in the USA where — for now, anyway — the music-only channels are still on, indicates that many people aren’t watching. (Hence there wasn’t a chorus of “what are you talking about? I’m tuned into MTV Music on my cable box right now!“) Much as I’m inclined to gripe here about Paramount Skydance and its political spinelessness and corporate greed, here you do get the sense that MTV’s music videos are the victim of the internet, and especially Google’s YouTube.
But maybe there’s some hope there. Wish you could watch 33,000+ music videos on shuffle? Choose by decade — the 80s, the 90s, the 2000s, the 2010s, even the 2020s and a decade before MTV existed, the 1970s. Try Headbangers’ Ball, Yo! MTV Raps, and Club MTV. Or shuffle all of them.
Meet MTV Rewind, the creation of FlexasaurusRex.
Update: You can save videos! Click the logo.
Oddly, the results are anti-algorithmic, even in contrast to MTV’s actual programming. The selection isn’t random, but once you hit play, you are in full shuffle mode. That means you might discover things you didn’t. How it works: that’s thanks to IMVDb, The Internet Music Video Database, and you’ll see it pulls from YouTube. It says “no ads,” but you do get an occasional retro ad for your amusement.
Suddenly, just to literally needle drop what hits first, I’m getting Serge Gainsbourg for our present decade:
And A Tribe Called Quest in the 90s:
And U-MV091 (corn dogs, anyone?):
Or I’m in the 2000s with The Distillers, and the writing is on the wall — that Yahoo! logo.
You know, this site pitches itself as nostalgia, but this isn’t just nostalgia I’m feeling. This is remembering a time that was genuinely freer, for all the evils of the industry. Contrast the imaginative music and visuals to the sad, depressing dreck you get pitched by default on Spotify (and to be fair, all the streaming services). Nostalgia is “I love this song from when I was a teenager jamming to this in the car.” This is more, “I miss the days before The Event and the appearance of all these body doubles, back when I could leave my house without a sawed-off shotgun hunting for food.”
Call it a pre-apocalyptic cultural landscape.
I mean, MTV was many things, but it didn’t launch by shilling for Ronald Reagan, apart from being a major NASA nerd from day one. And it did play actual music television, until gradually it didn’t.
I don’t want to sound too bleak. This implies that people aren’t still making fantastic music and imagining amazing music videos, except — they are, in greater numbers than ever, in more places than ever.
There’s a beautiful world out there, if we’ll just get unglued from our screens. Streaming killed the video star. Let’s make them stars again. Or if you’re in the mood to be glued to your screen, cue up MTV REWIND and enjoy. (And maybe buy the dev a coffee — especially just in case some lawyer shows up!)
And never, ever say the problem with our current moment is “there’s too much music” or “the barrier to entry is too easy” or “Final Cut is a thing that exists.” (Yeah, uh, hello, April 1999.)
The problem is too much corporate consolidation and finance.
And unless we resist, the problem is us.
I still want my MTV; gonna hit shuffle again. And I get this. Perfect.
And I’ll probably write more about this, but you should also go read this right now (maybe with MTV playing in the background):
Why I Quit Streaming And Got Back Into Cassettes – the inimitable Janus Rose for 404media
I want my Fedi TV
Get your money for nothing and your vids for free. The Fediverse has its own answer to this:
Just flipping it on, the quality is fantastic. You’ll get some cartoons, even, mixed in with the music and music videos, but who doesn’t want that?
Notably, this also comes with an open submission policy for TV and radio — it’s an online spiritual successor to public access television in the USA, which deserves its own write-up. You don’t get the feeling of open mic night; it feels more like great college radio, in the way that college radio doesn’t even exist anymore, crossed with a great short film festival screening.
The best bits of MTV — even the ones that were ultimately most influential — were oddly enough the experimental ones. But they were a tiny fraction of the programming; a lot was crammed into the network idents. Here, you get to mainline just that goodness.
Watch it for ten minutes and tell me again that you need to make your music video with genAI. I’m just watching a punk band with handmade, real-for-real animation of all sorts (even some toy cars). That’s “Shakeytown” by Brisbane’s i heart hiroshima.
https://robertafidora.com/animation-array#playlist