Entertainment Swindon

So those of us GenX and even the millennial generation woke up on New Years Day to headlines that MTV was no more… Headlines online stated MTV had gone off air as of 12midnight New Years Eve after 44yrs of iconic non-stop music that first cam alive with the event of Cable & Satellite TV, along with the big focus that came from big name rock and pop stars seeing the benefit of music videos to promote and sell their music, such as Michael Jackson that literally just re-wrote the book on making music videos with Thriller!

But did MTV die? Do we now half mast the flag and make a toast to the most iconic music channel in history?

Well, to correct the online chatter and mis-information clickbait headlines, MTV is still very alive and kicking, it’s just evolved. True, it will not be the same, there is no more 24/7 music channel, and you won’t find MTV on likes of Sky.

So here’s the facts…

So a few months ago, you probably heard that Paramount made the decision to shut down the music only channels, here in the UK & Australia, such as MTV Music, MTV ’80s, MTV ’90s, MTV Live, and Club MTV.

MTV is still on the air in the UK, and all over the world for that matter… But sticking to here in the UK, we will no longer get the music channels we have loved for the past four decades. Looking around in reports and the world of google, there was information out there that we could still watch the likes of MTV Spankin, MTV Biggest Pop and MTV Flow Latino on likes of Pluto and Tubi, but when we went to check, there was no MTV channel available, and only Tubi had any MTV content, though this was only programs made by MTV and not to do with music. The only place to watch MTV is on Paramount+, but again, this is not live music content as we remember. The only MTV content available on Paramount+ are the non-music programs such as Teen Mom, Geordie Shore and Naked Dating UK.

So for the most part, yes, you could say the reporting on MTV shutting down was mostly accurate, for those of us that would be glued to MTV in the 80s and 90s particularly, you could say to us, MTV is dead, it is off air. But the fast and loose clickbait headlines that we are far too often hit with in not only national and international news, but also our very own local news with the event of print news slowly going out of business, and the evolution of our news going online, papers need, clicks to make their money, so clickbait grabbing headlines stir emotion and often anger, with a need to click and read, only to find the weight of the story, the full story buried deep in the text of the story. Something here at Entertainment Swindon, we have made a very conscious decision not to do.

As well as the clickbait headlines of “MTV GOING OFF AIR”, we had to deal with the likes of Instagram and even more so, TikTok which for particularly the GenZ, this is where many get their news today, and with recent information about content on the TikTok platform in the last week surrounding Fitness, Lifestyle and particularly Weight Loss, that 98% of the info given on TikTok is factually incorrect, you can just imagine the mis-information of news on the platform.

So, yes, this is an end of an era, good news is that MTV is still very much alive, but if you want to pop on the TV to watch music videos, then we are left with the likes of 4Music, The Box, Kiss, Kerrang!, Magic, and Heart TV, plus themed channels from NOW (70s, 80s, 90s, Rock), though these are just non-stop back to back video channels without the fun presenting we loved about MTV, the interviews with the bands and solo artist when they were about to bring out a new single or album etc.

For me, its quite worrying how we are getting our news today, clickbait headlines, TikTok, and now even AI pushing out fake videos and news. Peoples understanding of how news is disseminated today needs to be brought up to speed, to understand social media platforms only send you what you like, giving a totally bias view on news, if you can even call what might pop up in your news feed on likes of Facebook and TikTok.

So I will end with a plead for MTV Music Channels to come back, in fact, please just transport me back to 1987, where’s that blood Delorean!