MTV Canada Will Go Dark on December 31, 2024

After 18 years on Canadian airwaves, MTV Canada is preparing to go off the air on December 31. The decision to shutter the specialty channel was confirmed recently by Bell Media, with a company spokesperson citing “changing audiences” on specialty TV as the reason for the closure.

MTV Canada launched in 2006 as part of the CTV network, and the channel offered viewers a Canadianized version of the MTV brand, one that has had a huge international impact. MTV Canada’s programming provided a mix of reality TV, music content, talk, lifestyle and pop culture-oriented documentary programming.

Many of the channel's most popular shows were talk and reality-based, airing The Hills and Teen Mom. MTV Live, launched in March 2006, launched the career of co-host Dan Levy. The flagship half-hour variety show ran for six seasons, and won a Gemini award for Best Talk Series.

Now best known as the co-creator and co-star of hit Emmy-winning Canadian TV comedy Schitt’s Creek, Dan Levy would gain prominence in Canada co-hosting, co-writing and co-producing the MTV Canada ratings hit The Hills: After Show (later just The After Show) with Jessi Cruickshank.

The channel later become increasingly dependent on such American reality shows as Floribama Shore, Jersey Shore: Family Vacation and Caught In The Act: Unfaithful in its programming, and by the end was playing multiple hours per day of the comedy reality clip show Ridiculousness.

South of the border, the MTV brand has also suffered in recent years, with owner Paramount Media Networks, shutting down MTV News and pulling down its website's online archives in May 2023, as part of a massive round of layoffs at Paramount. MTV Canada's name and branding was used under a licensing agreement with Paramount Global.

The origins of MTV Canada go back to the Talktv channel, launched in 2000 by Bell Globemedia. It changed its name and relaunched in March 2006.

Unlike MTV channels in the United States and internationally, the channel was restricted in its ability to carry music programming until 2015, due to conditions in the channel's licence issued by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).

Those restrictions meant that, unlike its international counterparts, MTV Canada never employed the "Music Television" tagline. As a result, in terms of music programming, the channel could never compete with the homegrown and much-beloved MuchMusic channel on the music front.

Viewers missing the unscripted and reality programming can take comfort in Bell Media's assurances that such shows will remain on their streaming service Crave and on CTV’s website.