Big Awards Show Not Returning for 2025

Those Golden Popcorn statues will have to stay in storage another year. The MTV Movie & TV Awards will not return in 2025.

TMZ reported Friday morning that the despite hopes for the show to return this year after it skipped 2024, the annual event, celebrating the best of pop culture, remains “on pause.”

A reason for MTV nixing the awards show for a second straight year was not given, but the outlet noted that it comes amid a period of massive change. Paramount Global, MTV’s parent company, is set to merge with David Ellison’s Skydance Media in a deal that is expected to close in the first half of this year. As a result of the merger, Paramount has been slimming down over the past year, and in an internal memo from the office of Paramount Pres./Music, Music Talent, Programming & Events Bruce Gillmer in February, it was revealed that in an effort to “optimize” its tentpole strategy, several major events are being paused in 2025.

Among those impacted by the pause are the MTV Europe Music Awards (EMAs), the CMT Music Awards, the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards Mexico, and the MTV MIAWs, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The U.S.-based VMAs and Kids’ Choice Awards, as well as local events like Isle of MTV Malta and the VMAJs, are not set to be affected by the pause. The memo did not mention the MTV Movie & TV Awards.

At this time, it seems the future of the MTV Movie & TV Awards remains in limbo. Sources close to production claimed plans to either bring the awards show back or scrap it altogether haven’t been solidified. An MTV spokesperson hasn’t commented on TMZ’s report at this time.

News that the awards show will not take place this year comes after the 2024 MTV Movie & TV Awards were put “on pause” with hopes to “return with a reimagined format in 2025.”

The show last aired in May 2023 amid the Writers Guild of America strike. As a result of the strike, host Drew Barrymore, as well as several guests, dropped out in a show of solidarity with the writers. The show instead aired without a host and moved to a pre-recorded virtual ceremony that featured pretaped segments and acceptance speeches.

The MTV Movie & TV Awards first began in 1992 as the MTV Movie Awards. The show remained an annual event from 1992 to 2019. It wasn’t held in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with MTV instead airing MTV Movie & TV Awards: Greatest of All Time. It returned in 2021.