The 8 channels vanishing from Sky and Virgin this December

These changes will come into effect before the New Year and will mark a huge blow to the music content available to customers.

MTV Music, Club MTV, MTV 90s and MTV 80s are among the channels closing down, with MTV Music set to switch off on December 31, just days before it is removed from the EPG on January 6, 2026.

Children’s TV is also set to be impacted with POP, Tiny POP, POP+1 and Tiny POP+1 all closing permanently.

These channels will also stop broadcasting at the end of December before being removed from listings on January 6, according to Sky.

This comes after it was announced that some Sky Cinema channels would undergo a rebrand over Christmas, before reverting to their original channel names.

These include festive and franchise-based broadcasting focused on the likes of Harry Potter, Spider-Man, Back to the Future, DC, Bourne and Jurassic Park.

However, some of these rebrands are permanent, with Gem TV HD before being named Gemporia HD.

Sky has said that many of these channel changes are updated weekly, so revisions to some of these could take place. But the media giant warned that the closures announced for the end of the month will definitely go ahead.

The kids’ channels being axed from Freeview after 23 years

This comes after it was revealed earlier this month that two popular channels would be axed from Freeview after 23 years on the air.

As is the case for Sky and Virgin Media customers, those using Freeview will no longer be able to watch POP and Tiny POP.

With these linear channels being removed from Freeview and the accompanying POP Player shutting down, there is only CBBC, CBeebies and Milkshake! on Channel 5 left as the last remaining traditional children’s channels.

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Discussing the shutdown, Narrative MD Paul Dunthorne said: “We’ve taken the decision to close our linear POP channels at the end of the year.

“We understand the importance of offering high-quality kids’ TV, and we’ve done everything that we can to maintain POP.

“But free-to-air channels for this audience are simply not commercially viable without public service broadcaster-style funding.”