As Sting sang, we wanted our MTV, and we certainly got it – but it'll soon be no more.

USA ents giant Paramount Global says it will pull the plug on all five of its MTV music brand channels in the UK by the end of this year amid a company merger with Skydance Media.

Paramount's decision in many quarters of Britain's arts sector is seen as inevitable against the unstoppable rise of new consumer streams and the gradual erosion of TV-tethered entertainment, with multiplatform entities such as Netflix, Youtube and Tik-Tok consolidating their grip on our screen(s) time. 

In July this year, Ofcom recognised that YouTube is second only to the BBC in our viewing habits, with Generation Alpha (viewers aged 4-15) watching YouTube ahead of anything else, and over 55s consuming more than twice as much of the platoform's content as they did just two years ago.

The axe will fall on MTV streams all around the globe except in the company's homeland, while for UK viewers it means the loss of MTV Music, MTV 80s, MTV 90s, Club MTV and Live HD, with the sole remaining presence being the brand's flagship channel, which airs reality TV shows, being the sole remaining presence here.

MTV's disappearance will mark the end of 28 years of transmitting music videos in the UK, although initially, as a dish-accessed channel, the first MTV Europe show was broadcast a decade earlier on July 1, 1987.

The debut video was Money for Nothing, Dire Straits, in which Sting, co-credited as a writer for the song, crooned the immortal "I want my MTV", a hook controversially rowed over by lawyers which was set to become the music brand's signature jingle.

A decade on, MTV UK kicked off with The Lightning Seeds' world cup song Three Lions as its first broadcast.

MTV has issued no comment on the UK exit, but has confirmed that December 31 will be the last day of broadcast, while it is also exiting Asia, Latin America and Australia.

As further illustration of our changing viewing habits, the most successful drama in the first quater of this year was Adolescence - shown on streaming service Netflix and comfortably beating broadcast TV ratings rivals with 12.2m viewers.

As a platform for creating stars, MTV was a springboard for the careers of Kelly Brook, Emma Willis, Cat Deeley, Greg James and Joel Dommett.

A souce told the Sun newspaper that the cuts were inevitable from the rise of streaming.

They added: "To say there has been a bloodbath of cuts would be an understatement."

● The less-than-succinct new name for the merged ents giant, as of August 7 this year, is Paramount, a Skydance Corporation.