Vice to launch TV network in US, Europe
October 23, 2015
Vice CEO Shane Smith has built an empire around content aimed at millennials. Now, he says he’s bringing that content to many more TV networks around the globe. In an interview with CNBC, Smith said the company will launch a Vice TV network in the US, along with a dozen in Europe, next year.
Smith didn’t say who the company’s partner in the US will be, but in Europe the company will buy some networks, partner and do joint ventures with others.
“It makes sense to launch a network anywhere. Because we’re doing three screens, OTT, we’re doing a network with Rogers in Canada. we’re doing networks in Europe, networks in South America,” said Smith. “We want to be able to go to our brands and say we can do TV, we can do mobile, we can do OTT, we can do everything.”
Smith said Vice is in a strong position to move into TV, because even as the cost of networks decline, 75 per cent of ad revenue is still in television.
“We look at it as a content creation engine where we can make a lot of content that we can then leverage to mobile and leverage online, leverage into OTT,” said Smith. “So you can actually take money from TV and put it into mobile, which is quite frankly more difficult to monetise.”