According to former employees, internal documents, and others familiar with the business, one of the company’s biggest and most important bets has been — and continues to be, post-bankruptcy — its rich and incentive-heavy contract with Shane Smith, Vice’s co-founder and former CEO. Now executive chairman, Smith is on track to be paid around $8 million in salary and potentially far more in bonuses and commissions under the terms of a five-year deal scheduled to end in 2024.
Ready for a lot more Vice? Well if you’re in the U.S. or Europe, you’re going to get plenty more Shane Smith and cohorts as the company launches television networks in both places (12 European markets, specifically) in 2016. Smith is on a pretty serious victory lap, as he revealed that Vice has also been doubling its profit and revenues and is targeting $1 billion this year, set to double that over the next few years.
Exclusives
Chris Ip looks at the rise of Vice Media, its charismatic founder, Shane Smith and its “almost anachronistic” move to cable as it expands its television footprint. “Vice has mastered the mass production of authenticity for profit,” Ip writes, as it grows to a global workforce of 1,500 and aims to straddle maturity and youthful swagger.
ice Media Inc., the online news organization that reports from remote corners of the globe, plans to create television networks in the U.S. and other markets in the next year. The New York-based company has held talks on its TV ambitions with cable and satellite providers, CEO Shane Smith says, without identifying potential partners.
