MTV Is Dead – January 1, 2026
The screen confirms what Gen X already knows in its bones. As of today, January 1, 2026, MTV has shut down its remaining music and supplemental video channels. MTV Live, MTV 80s, MTV 90s, and the last spaces dedicated to music on television are gone. MTV itself still exists, but no longer as a music television station. After 44 years, the place where music once lived on TV officially closed its doors.
MTV launched on August 1, 1981, opening with “Video Killed the Radio Star,” and nothing about pop culture is ever the same.
Music stopped being something you only hear. It became something you watched and argued about. Videos broke artists faster than radio ever did. Michael Jackson turns premieres into events. Madonna rewrites the rules of image and control. Prince turns performance into spectacle. Duran Duran makes style inseparable from sound.
MTV doesn’t just crown pop stars. It dragged rock into the visual age and forced it to evolve. The Rolling Stones proved they can still dominate a new generation. David Bowie reinvented himself again. Tom Petty became an MTV staple without chasing trends. Dire Straits won over skeptics with “Money for Nothing.” ZZ Top traded dust and denim for hot rods and spinning guitars. Aerosmith clawed back relevance. Van Halen brought virtuosity and swagger into heavy rotation.
For Gen X, MTV was appointment television. You waited. You planned. You missed dinner to catch Headbangers Ball, 120 Minutes, and Unplugged. If you miss a video, it’s gone. There was no rewind button, no streaming library, no algorithm saving it for later. Scarcity gives the music weight.
The shift began in the late 1990s. Reality programming grew and dominated. Videos faded. MTV became a brand instead of a destination. Today, the logo still lights up screens, but the music is gone. What remains lives where it always has for Gen X, in memory, in muscle, and in the songs that never stop playing.
Thankfully, we still have the memories, the videos, and the music.
Doug O’Brien
