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MTV News Shut Down As Paramount Global Cuts 25% of Its Staff (npr.org) 79

Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and Showtime, announced today that it is laying off some 25% of its staff and shutting down MTV News. NPR reports: In addition to reports of a soft ad market, Paramount Global is doing considerable restructuring. Earlier this year, Showtime merged with MTV Entertainment Studios. In an email to staff obtained by NPR, Chris McCarthy, president and CEO of Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios and Paramount Media Networks, explained the decision-making behind the cuts. While touting the "incredible track record of hits" such as Yellowstone, South Park, and Yellowjackets, McCarthy wrote, "despite this success in streaming, we continue to feel pressure from broader economic headwinds like many of our peers. To address this, our senior leaders in coordination with HR have been working together over the past few months to determine the optimal organization for the current and future needs of our business."

"This is a very sad day for a lot of friends and colleagues," wrote MTV News' Josh Horowitz on Instagram, "Many great people lost their jobs. I was hired by MTV News 17 years ago. I'm so honored to have been a small part of its history. Wishing the best for the best in the business." The news comes on the heels of a disappointing first quarter earnings report for the corporation.

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MTV News Shut Down As Paramount Global Cuts 25% of Its Staff

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  • MTV News was never news. It was a slanted political narrative dressed up with celebrity gossip. Good riddance.
    • You can't find one company that went broke. https://www.rollingstone.com/c... [rollingstone.com]

      • I saved that article so I could cite it, but it fucking hurts bad, because of this line:

        "Kellogg Co. is still outperforming market predictions â" even with inflation raising prices."

        So the author may be a social progressive, but they are also an economic ignoramus and bootlicker. Inflation is the condition of prices rising across the board, and Kellogg's has record profits during a period of inflation because they are helping to drive inflation [epi.org] , not the other way around.

      • by jwhyche ( 6192 )

        Tell that to Budwiser and Disney. Budwisers sales are in free fall, and has released three of its biggest flops back to back. It is being predicted that Disney latest live action disaster is going to fail, hard. They may not be exactly going broke, but they are feeling the ramifications of pissing off their core customers.

        In fact almost every company that "went woke" in the last few years is pulling away from it as fast as they can. There are a few that are doubling down the majority trend, currently

    • From the fuck your feelings crowd. Snowflake.

  • Music TV (Score:5, Insightful)

    by v1 ( 525388 ) on Wednesday May 10, 2023 @07:05AM (#63510653) Homepage Journal

    I can still remember decades ago when a friend of mine's family (that had cable tv, something my house never had) always had the living room TV on and tuned to MTV. That was their house radio basically.

    y'know, back when MTV was Music TV.

  • by monkeyxpress ( 4016725 ) on Wednesday May 10, 2023 @07:13AM (#63510659)

    There is a massive glut of content available now, and it's super cheap. I remember when I was growing up in the 90s, there would be like two new season shows each week (Thursday and Friday prime time). The rest was either mass produced soaps, or reruns. EVERY teen show for about a decade was produced by Peter Engel, and almost every drama show by Donald P. Bellisario.

    Even back when Netflix was starting out and House of Cards came out, there was little to compare it too. It was great and so people signed up for Netflix.

    Now there is so much content I regularly find shows that I've 'missed' from a few years ago that are really great. That's before you add in foreign languages productions which is a huge treasure trove. Or just meh stuff that fills in time and is entertaining enough - that's basically endless. I don't have anywhere near enough time to watch everything I'd like.

    Unless they can figure out a way to increase the time people have available to watch content, the situation is just going to get worse and worse, and coming soon is going to be low budget amateur drama productions like what youtube vloggers have done to all the travel/review type TV shows. The falling cost of production tools and CGI + AI is going to accelerate this (just think of the amazing Starship animations that are being done).

    Their revenue model basically assumes everyone will pay for all the streamers and they'll be able to keep growing revenues each year after that. The reality is that the whole media industry has likely reached an inflection point where revenues are going to be extremely difficult to maintain.

    • Unless they can figure out a way to increase the time people have available to watch content, the situation is just going to get worse and worse,

      I've got GREAT news for you! In a couple years we'll automate our way out of ever having to work! THE FUTURE'S SO BRIGHT, WE GOTTA WEAR OUR METAGOGGLES!

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Wednesday May 10, 2023 @09:25AM (#63510997) Homepage Journal

      It's a shame because MTV news did some good reporting on issues not covered elsewhere. Their MTV Need To Know channel on YouTube has some good explainers.

      Their demographic is particularly broke right now. Younger audiences both don't have the money to pay for this stuff, and are more likely to get news from other sources anyway.

      Buzzfeed News was another one that did some great investigations that were largely ignored by other media orgs. They partnered with the BBC and others.

  • Anybody else still bitter at MTV Entertainment Studios for turning MTV into a reality-tv station?
    • Re:Bitter? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by NateFromMich ( 6359610 ) on Wednesday May 10, 2023 @07:22AM (#63510689)

      Anybody else still bitter at MTV Entertainment Studios for turning MTV into a reality-tv station?

      As much as I despise reality TV, being bitter about this would require me caring about MTV in the first place.

      • by nucrash ( 549705 )

        Bitter? Somewhat, but that feels like a missed opportunity now.

        Music Television stopped playing music.
        Scifi rebranded to Syfy and started showing reality television
        History Channel started showing Ancient Aliens.
        TLC stopped pushing anything of educational value.
        Comedy Central became known for news.
        I could go on, but the point is all of these organizations shifted away their original programming in order to chase profits.

    • I was until I realized I can go to YouTube and watch any music video ever made (without the annoying blather of VJs).

      • But some of them were great. I still love the two that liked smacking each other, ranting about fire, and their love of Gwar. In fact they're back with a new show, that's sadly streaming only.

  • Good thing Kurt Loder moved on to other things.

  • What is MTV News and why should I care? Why whoud I care even by MTV proper?

  • What can you say about a TV network who reached it's peak with The Osbornes? They could pull the plug on the entire operation. There's only a couple hundred thousand people watching anymore. Probably 50k only because their remote is broken or lost.
  • by Vandil X ( 636030 ) on Wednesday May 10, 2023 @08:47AM (#63510867)
    MTV forgot who they were and evolved itself into a dead end.

    I stopped watching it decades ago.
  • I guess Kurt Loder needs to get his resume up to date.

  • [ ...Peace Sells bass rfff... ]

    First.

  • In the past, you would wak into a pub/bar, and there would be MTV playing on a few screens.

    Now it's wall-to-wall screens - even in restaurants - all full of grunting jocks and talking heads (about the grunting jocks).

    Yuck. Thank heaven for my tv-b-gone.

  • Just have ChatGPT make up your news!
    Low cost... just a few low skilled workers.
    Big bucks... people will read it and believe it (and click on the ads).

  • And not a moment too soon!

  • by tiqui ( 1024021 ) on Wednesday May 10, 2023 @10:52PM (#63512999)

    run music videos all day and all night... oh wait, my bad.

    for a moment I flashed-back to the 1980s when Music TeleVision ran music videos.

    I forgot we were in the "new and improved" future where MTV runs "reality" TV shows about idiots, Discovery channel runs "Naked and Afraid" endlessly, Headline News runs drama shows, AMC never runs classic movies, Arts & Enterntainment never runs anything entertaining and hasn't even HEARD of the arts, half the channels on cable IN AMERICA are in Spanish, etc

    I want my flying car, jetpack, personal robot servant, and those moon bases we were supposed to have in the 21st century.

    Hey, you kids, git offa my lawn! [end of rant][smile]

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