Vice founder Shane Smith has often expressed his desire to launch a TV news channel aimed at Millennials. Now, thanks to an assist from a Canadian media company, Smith is fulfilling his wish. Vice has teamed up with Rogers Communications to form a $100 million venture that will include a production studio and a north-of-the-border TV channel.
According to Variety, Vice and Rogers are splitting the bill for the new venture. That means each company will contribute $50 million CAD (about $44.7 million USD) to the initiative. Th
at budget will allow Vice and Rogers to both build a Toronto production facility and launch a 24-hour TV channel featuring Vice content. The two companies plan to highlight Canadian talent, and they will launch an incubator to provide workshops for aspiring Canadian journalists.“Essentially we are building a content-creation hub that will generate premium video for a cutting edge media company that will program — simultaneously — the holy trinity of convergence: mobile, online and TV,” said Smith.
The TV channel will only operate in Canada, where Rogers has more than two million subscribers, but Vice already has a presence on American television sets through an eponymous HBO series. In late August, A&E led a $250 million investment in Vice, one that could ultimately give the alternative news outlet a larger TV presence. As part of that deal, A&E valued Vice at $2.5 billion.
The deal with Rogers also brings Vice back to its roots. Vice began as a Canadian publication; it launched in Montreal in 1994.
Vice’s TV channel is expected to debut in 2015.
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