We’ve been speculating the fate of The Challenge for nearly a year now, and when season 42 was announced, a major rumor was confirmed: The show is moving to Paramount+.
Or is it? Next week, The Challenge: Cutthroat will air on MTV at 8 pm est. (It’s listed as 5 pm pst for me, but I doubt that’s accurate.)
This was revealed after there was a debacle with the Cutthroat trailer, which was pulled from The Challenge’s official social media profiles. While we don’t know exactly what happened here, some folks theorized the trailer was placed in limbo because it said “streaming exclusively on Paramount+.” If the show is also airing on MTV, that statement would have been inaccurate.
So, here’s what we know now:
- Regardless of MTV, the season will still stream on Paramount+ starting August 5. So, there’s no advantage to watching on MTV other than not needing to pay for Paramount+.
- The episode is listed at 70 minutes on MTV’s schedule, which includes commercials. This implies the final edited episode will be roughly 48 minutes, akin to All Stars: Rivals (for reference, a standard 60-minute episode is about 42 minutes without commercials).
- We only know the first episode is definitely airing on MTV. While all of All Stars: Rivals aired on MTV, this could also be a promotional tactic. Some episodes of All Stars 2 aired on MTV following new episodes of Spies, Lies and Allies. Again, this was a promotional decision, and the entirety of All Stars 2 did not air on MTV.
While MTV’s intentions aren’t fully known here, it’s surprising they were able to make space in their busy week of Ridiculousness reruns to find time for The Challenge. Ultimately, this is unlikely to have a major impact on the season’s performance. It might help slightly by allowing more people to view the show, but if I had to guess, the vast majority of viewership will come from Paramount+.
Stop Being Polite 