After 36 years, the news production extension of MTV Entertainment Studios will be closing its doors.
The news company was forced to severely downsize a few years ago, in 2017. The repercussions of MTV News officially closing its doors means that 25% of employees across multiple of MTV’s sister companies including Showtime, Paramount Media Networks, and MTV Entertainment Studios, will be laid off. The MTV News team as a whole, including all operations departments, will also have their contracts terminated.
President of Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios and Paramount Media Networks, Chris McCarthy, wrote a memo to his staff members explaining the economic troubles of the company and the difficulty of the decision at hand. His memo said “This is a tough yet important strategic realignment of our group. Through the elimination of some units and by streamlining others, we will be able to reduce costs and create a more effective approach to our business as we move forward.” Those employees impacted by the closure and layoffs were contacted by their employers earlier this week on May 9th.
Showtime and MTV Entertainment Studios will continue to operate together and will be less affected by the closure of MTV News than Paramount Media Networks will be. The nine Paramount networks function together in one large portfolio group, and they all face the risk of studio layoffs. So far, MTV News is the only network fully closing its doors; from the Paramount portfolio, Nick, MTV, Comedy Central, Paramount Network, CMT, Smithsonian, TV Land, Logo, and Pop TV could all see some negative effects from the remainder of studio layoffs.