It’s no secret that Paramount is going through a rough patch after Skydance’s bid to buy the company was rejected. Earlier this week, Paramount’s three co-CEOs announced plans to cut $500 million in expenses through layoffs and other cost savings measures. That may be why Paramount has gutted its family of websites and wiped away over two decades of content from the official sites for Comedy Central, MTV, and more.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Paramount’s cutting spree began on June 24 when MTV News was deleted. Now, all of the Comedy Central-related sites, CMT, Yellowstone, Paramount Network, and TV Land sites have also been stripped down to almost nothing. Most of the sites now feature messages that tell fans the content they’re looking for is on Paramount+. However, many of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report’s clips and episodes are not on Paramount+, nor is the complete run of South Park. Max still holds the rights to stream South Park’s regular episodes, while Paramount+ is the home of South Park’s specials and the1999 movie.
The loss of MTV News was decried as a tragedy by Michael Alex in an editorial on Variety. Alex was the founder of MTV News’ digital edition, which he launched in 1994 during the infancy of the internet. Alex led the site through 2007, which continued without him until it was shut down last year.
“The archives of MTV News and countless other news and entertainment organizations have a similar value: They’re a living record of entertainment history as it happened,” wrote Alex. “And although they probably still exist somewhere deep in the bowels of Paramount, it’s not hard to imagine some site-wide update deleting them forever.”
Alex also shared his belief that Paramount may sell those archives to a new owner who may charge readers to access them. That tracks with comments made by Paramount co-CEO George Cheeks during a company wide town hall. “We’re looking at selling certain Paramount-owned assets–in fact, we’ve already hired bankers to assist us in this process,” said Cheeks via The Hollywood Reporter. “And we’ll use the proceeds to help pay down debt and strengthen our balance sheet.”
“History needs stewards, not owners,” argued Alex in his Variety editorial. “Whoever legally owns the archive does not legally own the history, even if they own the creative work of thousands of writers, editors, producers and more. This archive–of MTV News, where you heard it first–needs to be available to public.”
