MTV has revealed that five of its 24-hour music stations are to be pulled off air in the UK and Ireland at the end of this year.
After decades of broadcasting, the five channels going off air are MTV Music, MTV 80s, MTV 90s, Club MTV and MTV Live. All five channels will also stop airing in Germany, France, Austria, Poland, Brazil and Australia at a currently unspecified later date. MTV’s flagship channel, MTV HD, will continue to broadcast as usual, however.
The changes come amid MTV’s parent company, Paramount, making attempts to cut costs across the company by as much as $500 million (£376 million), reports BBC News.
Founded in the US in 1981, MTV has been credited with helping to popularise the music video format around the world, having launched the first-ever 24-hour music broadcast channel dedicated to showing music videos. As of 2011, the broadcaster’s main channel, MTV UK, stopped broadcasting music videos in favour of TV series including reality shows. Music videos continued to be showed on the various sister stations, including those soon to go off air in certain regions.
