MTV News is shutting down after 36 years — take a look at its iconic history

• Paramount Global announced Tuesday it is shutting down MTV News and cutting 25% of its staff.
• MTV News began over 35 years ago with its first correspondent, Kurt Loder.
• It gained popularity for covering news in music, entertainment, and eventually politics.

After decades of reporting on entertainment news and a history of iconic interviews with A-listers in the music industry, MTV News is shutting down.

Paramount Global announced the shutdown on Tuesday, along with the news that it's cutting 25% of its staff, NPR reported. Its subsidiaries include CBS, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, and Showtime, the latter of which merged with MTV Entertainment Studios in February.

In an email to staff obtained by NPR, Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios president and CEO Chris McCarthy cited "pressure from broader economic headwinds" as the cause for the reduction in staff.

MTV News began in the 1980s and quickly gained popularity with young Gen X and millennial viewers for its coverage of the music industry. Here's a look at its history, from its meteoric rise to its final days.

MTV News began gaining popularity among American youth in the late 1980s, led by Rolling Stone editor-turned-TV host Kurt Loder, who served as the first correspondent of the network's "The Week in Rock" program.

As part of the program, Loder covered entertainment and pop culture news and interviewed A-list musicians like Madonna and Prince.

Celebrities often used the platform to discuss more than just their music. The program paved the way for iconic moments like pop star David Bowie criticizing the network for not featuring the music videos of Black artists in a 1983 interview with video jockey Mark Goodman ...

... and rapper Tupac Shakur giving his opinions on Donald Trump and greed in the US in a 1992 interview.

"The Week in Rock" eventually expanded to become MTV News and began covering politics with Tabitha Soren becoming the face of its "Choose or Lose" campaign during the 1992 presidential election.

As part of the "Choose or Lose" campaign, celebrities toured the US registering young Americans to vote.

In 1994, Loder famously interrupted MTV programming to be one of the first to break the news of Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain's death.

Throughout its history, MTV News hosted pre-show interviews on the red carpet of the network's Video Music Awards. The award show has been the stage for many iconic pop culture moments.

In 2016, as more viewers began looking online for news, MTV News looked to publications like Buzzfeed and Vice for examples of how to restructure its newsroom.

But, by 2017 its editorial team experienced cutbacks as the outlet pivoted to focus on short-form and video content.

In February, Paramount Global's Showtime and MTV Entertainment Studios merged with McCarthy at the helm of Paramount Media Networks.

After attempts to revamp the outlet in the 2010s, McCarthy announced that MTV News would be shutting down in a Tuesday email to staff.