From January 2026, the channel that once started as "Music Television" will dispense with music videos in its German television offering. The program, formerly "MTV Europe", and at times also called "MTV Germany" with German-language broadcasts, will then primarily broadcast US reality shows. After a pay-TV phase, MTV has been freely receivable again for years via Astra satellite and Vodafone cable connection, among others.

After Fernsehserien.de first reported on the change, the end for videos on MTV has now been confirmed by the industry service DWDL.de. As the company stated there, the last episodes of the music shows "MTV 80s", "MTV 90s" and "MTV 00s" are scheduled to air on the morning of the upcoming New Year’s Eve. In the evening, there will be some episodes of the once trend-setting format "MTV Unplugged", and in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day, the last music video is to be broadcast as part of "MTV in the Mix". The pay-TV channels like "MTV Live" will also be discontinued at the end of the year.

As early as August 2025, MTV, part of the media giant Paramount Skydance, removed several music shows from its program. These include the formats cultivated for decades, "Headbangers Ball" and "Yo! MTV Raps". However, these had not been elaborately produced for a long time as they were in the 80s and 90s, but recently showed a mix of music videos from MTV’s golden era and newer clips.

EMA also canceled

At the beginning of the year, the music and video award ceremony „EMA Europe“ was also canceled. These "MTV Europe Music Awards 2025" have existed since 1994, exactly 20 years, as the European counterpart to the US "MTV Video Music Awards" (VMA), which have been considered the Oscars of music videos since 1984. The last EMA edition from 2024 can still be watched - of course - with a subscription to Paramount+.

Especially for European acts and music video producers, the end of clips on MTV marks the end of an era. Even though artistically elaborate videos still exist, they have been reserved for particularly successful acts for many years, where an investment still pays off for the music industry. YouTube and Spotify are now the preferred distribution channels for this. Smaller music brands today have to make do with self-productions without a major storyline or "Lyric Videos", where only the lyrics of a song are displayed to the music.

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This article was originally published in German. It was translated with technical assistance and editorially reviewed before publication.