After 35 years as a staple of MTV on television as well as online, MTV News is no more. The division of the iconic cable TV channel was shut down this week amidst broader layoffs at its parent company, Paramount Global.
Anyone who grew up in the ’80s and ’90s also grew up watching MTV News, which was launched in the late 1980s and appeared on MTV in both longform TV shows (like The Week in Rock) and interstitial shorts that would air during commercial breaks. In its earliest days, MTV News’ best-known host was Kurt Loder, a former Rolling Stone reporter.
Here is a pretty typical MTV News spot from 1988, with Loder giving an update on George Michael’s upcoming touring schedule. That opening logo with the satellite dish and the wooshes on the soundtrack will surely trigger a nostalgia hit for any ’90s kid.
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Although primarily associated with reporting on celebrities and the ins and outs of the music business, MTV News also became an important force in politics in the 1990s, covering elections, and encouraging young people to exercise their right to vote. And MTV News was just back in the news recently, when the TV show Yellowjackets created a fictional MTV News segment featuring a young Kurt Loder reporting on its characters’ disappearance. The segment was created using deepfake technology. (Loder is now 77 years old.)
Through the years, other journalists and hosts became associated with MTV News, including Tabitha Soren, SuChin Pak, and Gideon Yago. And MTV News was also a popular website for pop culture news and interviews for a number of years, although recently its staff had been cut after a few attempts to relaunch the brand with some splashy hires. It truly is an end of an era.
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