MTV News shutting down as Paramount announces layoffs

MTV News, which has covered issues ranging from pop culture to politics, is closing down after 36 years as Paramount announced cuts to its U.S. workforce.

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Paramount Global announced the layoffs of 25% of its U.S. team, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

In a memo to staff members, Paramount President/CEO Chris McCarthy said that despite the company’s success in the streaming platform it continues to “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%,” McCarthy said in the memo, according to CNN. “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.”

Paramount Global, the parent company to MTV News, had 24,500 employees at the end of 2022, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The layoffs will affect employees at Showtime, MTV Entertainment Studios and Paramount Media Networks, The Washington Post reported.

Recently, Paramount Global posted poor quarterly earnings, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The company cited an 11% drop in television advertising revenue as one factor. Bob Bakish, the CEO of Paramount Global, told investors that the company is “navigating a challenging and uncertain macroeconomic environment, and you see the impact of that on our financials, as the combination of peak streaming investment intersects with cyclical ad softness.”

MTV News debuted in October 1987 and targeted Generation X and older millennial viewers, the Post reported. It took hold when Rolling Stone editor Kurt Loder joined the network and launched its “The Week in Rock” program, according to CNN.

Loder, along with correspondents Tabitha Soren, Gideon Yago and others, achieved celebrity status, the Los Angeles Times reported. In 1992, all three presidential candidates -- incumbent Republican George H.W. Bush, Democrat Bill Clinton and Reform Party candidate Ross Perot -- appeared in interviews on MTV News.

“We know the latest, hippest music to put something with. That’s our strength,” Dave Sirulnick, the news operation’s director, told The New York Times in 1992.

In 1993, MTV broadcast a special report, “Hate Rock,” anchored by Loder, the Los Angeles Times reported. The following year, MTV News aired a special report on “Gangsta Rap.”

During a 1994 appearance by Clinton at an MTV town hall to address the rise of violence, an audience member famously asked, “Is it boxers or briefs?”

“Usually briefs,” Clinton said, according to the Los Angeles Times.

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