Culture Craze

E! News Cancelled After 30 Years: Why the Red Carpet Classic Couldn’t Survive the TikTok Era

Published

2 months ago

July 25, 2025

Chiraag

E! News cancelled, celebrity news show ends, Justin Sylvester host, Keltie Knight farewell, E! News final episode, 2025 TV cancellations, TikTok effect on TV, entertainment media shift, Joburg ETC

For anyone who grew up watching Giuliana Rancic glide across red carpets or tuned in nightly for the latest celebrity drama, this one stings: E! News is officially being cancelled. The long-running entertainment show will air its final episode on 25 September 2025, marking the end of a 30-year run that helped define the celebrity gossip era.

The moment the music stopped

According to reports, staff at E! were informed of the cancellation on the morning of Thursday, 24 July, just minutes before old episodes were broadcast. The reason? A fundamental shift in how audiences consume celebrity content.

Instead of waiting for a nightly roundup, today’s viewers are getting their pop culture fix in real time on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts. By mid-2025, E! had more than 87 million social media followers and racked up over 7 billion digital views, while its traditional TV ratings continued to dip.

A second chance that couldn’t stick

This cancellation isn’t the first blow to E! News. The original show was paused in March 2020 due to the pandemic and then officially axed during its hiatus. It made a comeback in 2022 with a fresh late-night format hosted by Adrienne Bailon-Houghton and Justin Sylvester, later joined by Keltie Knight.

While the reboot brought back some of the old glitz, it couldn’t compete with the immediacy of online entertainment news. As one fan posted on X (formerly Twitter), “By the time E! breaks a story, it’s already gone viral and memed to death.”

A digital afterlife

Despite the farewell to television, E! News isn’t disappearing altogether. The brand will live on through its website and social channels, where its digital footprint is stronger than ever. Meanwhile, the E! network is pivoting to other entertainment formats like Botched Presents: Plastic Surgery Rewind and Kimora: Back in the Fab Lane.

Some of the E! News production team may be absorbed into Versant, a related media project, although exact roles haven’t been confirmed.

Local reflections on a global goodbye

South African fans who remember E! News as a staple on DStv’s Channel 124 are already posting nostalgic throwbacks. One Joburg-based entertainment blogger wrote, “This show taught me how to pronounce ‘Versace’ properly before I even had Wi-Fi.”

The cancellation also highlights a broader trend: legacy media is struggling to keep up with the content-on-demand generation. Nightly entertainment roundups, no matter how glossy, just can’t match the speed of a viral reel.

So as E! News signs off for good this September, it leaves behind not just a studio set but a legacy, one that reminds us just how much pop culture, and how we consume it, has evolved.