HBO and Vice Media are delaying the launch of their evening newscast until Oct. 10 to make sure its creative elements work.
Vice Media plans to join TV’s nightly news game, and is gearing up to launch a new competitor to Lester Holt, David Muir and Scott Pelley with a program on HBO set to debut on Sept. 26. Vice News Tonight will be a half-hour nightly newscast, and will air weeknights on HBO. It will also be available on the Time Warner premium-cable service’s HBO Go and HBO Now streaming services as well as on demand.
ESPN and Vice are collaborating on content in a deal that will see films from ESPN’s 30 for 30 series airing on the new Viceland network and Vice Sports producing new series for ESPN, the companies said today. One curious note in the announcement came via ESPN President John Skipper on his upstart new partner: “I applaud [Vice CEO] Shane [Smith] for understanding that television is the smartest path to worldwide leadership.”
No one will ever accuse Vice of a lack of bravura, but as it readies the launch of its Viceland TV channel next month, it has been wooing advertisers there with the prospect of reinventing the form. Details are still sketchy, but de-cluttering is a key part of the strategy with a low eight-minutes of commercial time per hour and a focus on branded content via its in-house content studio. And incidentally, guarantees are low and the ads won’t be cheap.
Exclusives
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.
Media giant NBCUniversal has an Achilles’s heel, according to its top executive. And it hopes it has come up with a cure for the ailment. CEO Steve Burke said the company took a look at four different outlets: BuzzFeed, Vox, Vice and Huffington Post. NBCU recently announced it would invest $200 million in each of the first two companies, in deals that will allow for content sharing, joint advertising pacts, and said Burke, education. “We like their businesses, but the real deal is we are going to get smarter” about reaching consumers with content through digital outlets.
Geared toward women around the globe and of all ages, Vice’s new channel — called Broadly — features content on subjects spanning politics, culture, sex and fashion. Broadly is joining Vice’s network of now 11 channels, including Vice News, Munchies (about food) and Motherboard (about tech and science), all of which use YouTube as a video platform
Vice: Staying Brash As It Moves To TV
Vice previewed 10 TV shows at its NewFront presentation in New York on Friday. Executives at Vice didn’t say where the shows will air, but it is likely they will populate the Vice-branded TV network that is reportedly in the works.
HBO and Vice Media will expand their news content programming in a new four-year deal that includes the addition of a daily Vice newscast on the pay cable outlet. Vice also will produce 32 long-form specials for HBO over the next four years, the network said.
