MTV officially shut down its remaining 24-hour music-focused channels on December 31, 2025, ending an era of music video broadcasting
They ended their final broadcast with “Video Killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles — the very first video broadcast by MTV on August 1st, 1981.
I get it. If I were watching music videos in 2025 (which I occasionally do), I would use a streaming platform like YouTube, where I can watch what I want, when I want, as many times as I want.
But if you were a teenager in the 19080s — the glory days of MTV — as I was, you likely remember the excitement, anticipation, and joy of watching a channel that aired music videos you had never seen before, waiting desperately for the video you wanted to see, and finally having your patience pay off with the first few notes of that beloved song.
I love on-demand streaming television, but I also find something beautiful and glorious and righteous about waiting, hoping, and being surprised by what your MTV overlords served to you.
I remember it all.
VJs like Downtown Julie Brown, Adam Curry, Nina Blackwood, and my crush, Martha Quinn.
Shows like Headbangers Ball, The Cutting Edge, and Julie Brown’s live request show.
Hundreeds of musicians saying, “I want my MTV.”
Groundbreaking videos like “Take Me On,” “Money for Nothing,” “Don’t Come Around Here No More,” and “Sledgehammer.”
The collective monoculture that allowed you to go to school each day, talking about the videos that everyone had seen the night before.
For those of us fortunate enough to have watched MTV during its first decade, before reality television, game shows, and scripted programming changed it forever, I think we were lucky, blessed souls. It’s not often that television transforms in such a way as to capture the collective attention of a generation and offer something both loved and worthy of love.
Lucky me. Lucky for all of us Gen-X kids.
RIP MTV. Like so many of the musicians you featured on your channel, you burned bright for a short but glorious bit of time that many of us will never forget.
