MTV Is Becoming More Like E! Entertainment And That's Bad

Last year, Comcast spun off most of its cable networks such as CNBC and E! under the company, Versant. Leaving brands like NBC, Bravo and Telemundo alongside their studios and Peacock, their streaming service under NBCUniversal.

E! which serves as one of the few brands alongside CNBC to be distributed internationally by Versant has seen in declines across Europe in recent years. 

Since the spinoff was announced, NBCUniversal had begun phasing out of E! across its portfolio either by shutting down the channel as seen in the UK or replacing it with Bravo as seen in Africa.

Prior to this, E! had seen a major reduction in content as NBCUniversal axed E! News with Keeping Up With The Kardashians later revived on Disney+ as The Kardashians. Point being made is that these were one of their most stable brands.

It appears MTV is starting to make the same mistake cause following the acquisition of Paramount by Skydance Media. They've already cancelled 3 of their top shows like Ridiculousness, Catfish: The TV Show and Jersey Shore.

Similar to E! which was reliant on Bravo for The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills, Watch What Happens Live and Below Deck. MTV is doing the same with Caught In The Act: Unfaithful (VH1) and Ink Master (The Smithsonian Channel).

The problem part is that since Paramount's takeover there hasn't quite as yet been any word on new content for MTV.

Even if they were reports none can hold a candle to what Ridiculousness, Jersey Shore or even Catfish: The TV Show had to offer. Because of that any new production looking to rollout will likely be discarded by the loyal viewers.

For MTV, I think it's going to be a whole lot worse because they closed a bunch of their music channels around the world. In some of these markets like Africa, MTV Base was the top dog and gave the MTV trademark some bling.

MTV had a bunch of local shows like Guy Code and Ghosted SA and after Paramount Africa decided to shut it's operations which affected these shows it's basically become a European import.

Unlike E!, they probably won't be an ending where shows like Teen Mom and Help, I'm In A Secret Relationship breath new life.

Paramount is making a play for Warner Bros. Discovery and for all we know the company could divert it's attention from MTV onto TLC. Outside of CBS, Paramount's doesn't have a strong portfolio to leverage from.

The buyout of Warner Bros. Discovery could led to rationale process where MTV is not deemed core in its strategy. For NBCUniversal that is Bravo and for Warner Bros. Discovery that's TLC and compare these two with MTV it's clear whose weaker here.

Post the takeover, Paramount has been struggling to bring MTV back to its glory days. There's been talks for a while about making it an online only service where it would rival with Spotify but again you killed off this audience by closing your music channels.

Whoever was watching MTV Base or MTV Hits had already moved on and probably found alternatives that audience is not going to magically come back.