Shane Smith, Vice Media co-founder and CEO, is not a man accustomed to taking things lying down. And yet there he was one Friday evening last month, admittedly with a few ales in him, lying prone on stage at Manhattan’s Chelsea Piers, talking up his company’s virtues and history through a microphone before a packed house of mainly millennials.

It was the last of the 2016 NewFront events, and Smith was heaping the attention on Viceland, the few-months-old cable network that took over the dial space of A+E Networks’s unplugged H2 channel, premiering in 70 million homes. Since H2 was preaching to a whole other, older demo, it made sense for Smith to tout from the floor that Viceland had experienced the “fastest f--king aging down of a network in the history of television.”

A few moments later, Smith rose to his feet and soon began shouting the lyrics to 1970s punk band Sham 69’s “If the Kids Are United.” With the night’s house band playing along, Smith loudly sang the chorus, “If the kids are united/then we’ll never be divided.”

It played like a fitting rallying cry for Smith’s new millennials-focused cable network. But the man has quite the task in front of him with Viceland, and a climb that could run at the same angle as the six verticals he talked about launching at the NewFronts.

Smith has said Viceland will accomplish what many regard as two of the most dificult goals in current-day television: make the kind of content that will lure lots of persnickety millennials to traditional live and C3 viewing, and create a successful new cable network in a world of skinny bundles and cord-cutters.

The digital media company is valued at about $4.5 billion, but it’s playing with a bunch of high-profile, newer-blood investments from such foundational industry concerns as The Walt Disney Co., Hearst and 21st Century Fox, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars each. The pressure to succeed may not yet be high, but how long before the suits start calling Smith and network creative director Spike Jonze with a sigh and suggestions — especially if the Nielsen numbers the network isn’t yet reporting don’t rise?

Granted, it’s early — fittingly enough, Viceland launched on leap day this year — but the safe bet is that a network sporting series with titles such as Gaycation, Weediquette, Balls Deep and F---k, That’s Delicious has the deck stacked against it.

That, of course, is the safe bet. But Smith, who has spent his share of time gambling and imbibing in Las Vegas, isn’t interested in the odds against his platform-agnostic concern making bank. Certainly not at the NewFronts, as he worked the room with a wicked smile, a woman on each arm and a bearded cable executive at his ear.

The Vice Media sensibility is everywhere here: It would be a challenge to find another party that would attract such a radiant mix of power suits, neck tattoos and Founding Father wigs (worn by Vice execs, ready to answer your questions). For Smith, the question comes down to how he measures success, and an answer that offers what he believes is his most abiding weapon.

“I don’t know — having fun. Enjoying myself. Not dying,” he began with a chuckle. “I mean, the usual metrics: Growth, money … but content. If I’m proud of the stuff we’re making, that makes me happiest.”

CONTENT BUBBLE

Smith has every reason to see Viceland’s content as the ultimate game-changer, given the company’s track record for bringing eyeballs to other platforms with a youth-minded élan. The only issue is, the competition is now overwhelmingly crowded for those eyeballs, to the point where, one year after FX Networks CEO John Landgraf declared, “There is simply too much television,” the ability to stand out gets increasingly dificult.

Viceland’s wild card is its long-honed formula for producing cross-platform successes in the years since Vice began as a Canadian magazine in 1994, moving from Montreal to New York in 2001 and continuing its multimedia expansion. The company’s content has reached more than 150 million non-linear viewers to date across all platforms, from video-on-demand to YouTube, from Facebook to Apple TV and other apps.

The hope is that Viceland’s shows — a mix of immersive documentary series and reality fare — will build a homestead on the frontier land of cable. But while the style of shooting may be familiar enough to fans of anything from TMZ to 30 for 30 to Storage Wars, series devoted to subjects from gay lifestyle and travel to marijuana use aren’t, on the surface, quite as common to traditional viewers as, say, Chopped and Love It or List It.

“It doesn’t look like your mother’s cable network,” Bill Carroll, senior vice president and director of content strategy for Katz Television Group, said. “You see a lot of these entities like Vice looking at … [being] available through mainstream media. Whether they’re mainstream is a different conversation.”

In a sense, the more relevant conversations are: Can Viceland bring ad dollars in, despite the fact that the company is not publicly sharing Nielsen figures, and is the content of a quality that people will want to tune in and come back for more?

The list of clients on the network at present includes some big names — Samsung, Unilever, Bank of America, Diageo, T-Mobile and Toyota — including several that have followed the company from earlier digital incarnations to the cable network. The network has also eschewed, by necessity or design, some of the typical spot count numbers for more custom messaging.

“We really believe that when advertisers come to the network, it should be more relevant,” said Guy Slattery, who moved over from his vice president of marketing post at A&E to become GM of Viceland earlier this year. “We try to make custom messaging for our clients that will be on the most relevant platform for them, and a lot of client partners on the digital side come in wanting to work on the network side.”

That includes Unilever’s Tresemmé brand tying in with Broadly, Vice’s vertical that looks at women’s experiences, and Bushmills Black Bush Whiskey in spots with Thomas Morton, the longtime Vice contributor who now hosts Viceland’s investigative series, Balls Deep.

It’s folks such as Morton who are really key to the growth of the cable network, Slattery maintained. Showcasing the kind of filming and editing de rigueur in current docuseries, Viceland’s slate represents the passions of the young filmmakers behind them. Weediquette is correspondent Krishna Andavolu’s take on pot culture; Gaycation follows actress Ellen Page and her friend Ian Daniel exploring LGBTQ culture the world over; and Huang’s World finds Eddie Huang searching for meaning and identity with a healthy serving of food thrown in. The faces are fresh and new, but familiar to fans of Vice platforms. And the content has a sensibility of wonder about it. When Vice World of Sports host Selema Masekela watches a boxing match in the episode “The Boys of Bukom,” about a slum village in Ghana that has produced an inordinate number of fighting champions, his wide-eyed shouts of “whoa!” imply he’s just as amazed as he believes we should be.

“We don’t consider them hosts,” Slattery said. “They’re the people creating the shows, the executive producers. We really believe in finding people with a point of view who will tell it, rather than a network creating a show and casting a host for it. These are their passions.”

Those passions are meant to stir up millennials who have, through reams of research, professed concern and commitment for myriad social issues that are covered on many Viceland shows (a tie the network is banking on advertisers buying into). The format, which works to great success on HBO’s Emmy-winning Vice documentary show, harkens back to TV stalwarts such as 60 Minutes.

“It’s a more natural form of storytelling and it was always the hallmark of 60 Minutes, which got rid of the traditional imperious narrator and replaced it with highly idiosyncratic individuals, such as Mike Wallace, Morley Safer and Ed Bradley,” said Jon Klein, CEO and cofounder of digital network builder Tapp Media and former president of CNN/U.S., who also oversaw 60 Minutes for a time when he was at CBS. “In a sense, Vice continues the 60 Minutes tradition. Those are authentic voices and they found a way to capture that. That’s the lingua franca of journalism today.”

Whether or not that formula helps to bring in viewers and advertisers remains anybody’s guess — and it’s a difficult equation.

“It’s very early to be looking at any performance of a channel,” Klein said. “And I don’t know any successful launch of any channel. Traditional cable is a very tough road to hoe. But Vice has created a mystique around the brand and, what’s more, you can watch Viceland in any number of ways even if you don’t get cable.”

DECENT EXPOSURE

While Smith and Co. do their level best to maintain their media maverick cred, they’ve balanced it with expanded ties to other major outlets. A new pact will allow Vice to develop short-form shows for ESPN TV and digital properties, with a trade of some 30 for 30 segments airing on Viceland. Every bit of exposure will help the network.

Still, it’s another safe bet that the on-air and off -air attitude of Viceland won’t fall under the rubric of traditional television. When asked to recommend the right first Viceland show for this writer’s 21-year-old daughter, Slattery said, “Weediquette — most 21-yearolds like smoking weed, right?” While that may not be a Leslie Moonves-type answer, that seems to be the point — in an already disrupted TV world, maybe something more untraditional is needed to bring millennials in.

That appeared to be Smith’s attitude at the NewFront. When asked the same question, he suggested Gaycation or “some of our environmental stuff — we’ve got to change the world.”

If that’s really Smith’s goal — yet another lofty one — Viceland is his latest tool, and regardless of safe bets or long odds, it’s probably wise not to doubt his commitment to the game, regardless of when or how it may end.

“I believe in the future,” he said, as he was swept off into the NewFront crowd. “I don’t ever wanna be fully satisfied.”

Viceland: The Chief Assets

Key personnel: Shane Smith, CEO; Spike Jonze and Eddy Moretti, co-presidents

Premier advertisers: PLC, Bank of America Corp., Diageo, Shinola, Bushmills, Mailchimp, Samsung, T-Mobile USA, Toyota and Unilever

Blue-chip content:

Balls Deep: Thomas Morton hits the road — to a tent revival in Arkansas, to Michigan to spend Ramadan with a Muslim family, to Alaska to live off the land — to delve into humanity and what it all means.

Gaycation: Ellen Page and her BFF Ian Daniel find out how the world deals with LGBTQ issues; stops include Japan, Brazil, Jamaica and, infamously, Iowa, where they had a little chat with Ted Cruz.

Huang’s World: Eddie Huang eats tuna sperm in Italy, checks out panda porn in China and drinks poop-infused coffee in Shanghai in this travel, food, search-for-self series.

Noisey: Zach Goldbaum looks at the culture and chief figures in some of the world’s most fascinating music scenes. At the same time, he delves into anything from violence to drugs and gangs to Wayne Newton.

States of Undress: Hailey Gates explores global fashion and issues that go way beyond the runway, from China’s clothing manufacturing to cultures that insist on women wearing burkas.

Vice World of Sports: Selema Masekela covers boxing in Bukom (in Ghana), soccer in a Ugandan prison and baseball in Cuba.

Weediquette: Krishna Andavolu explores the new “pot paradigm,” looking at the marijuana business and culture from the Congo to Amsterdam, and California to Colorado.

July premieres on Viceland:

Black Market: Michael K. Williams looks at underground economies and folks finding ways to survive in the U.S. and around the world, from carjackers in N.J. to poachers in South Africa.

Cyberwar: Ben Makuch introduces us to hackers, dissidents, government officials and others involved in the confusing and frightening world of cyberwarfare.

Dead Set on Life: Canadian chef Matty Matheson serves up everything from a $6 gas station sub to the culinary wonders of Winnipeg’s Filipino community — and lots in between.

Party Legends: Lance Bangs brings us — through art and animation — to some parties we all wish we could have attended, courtesy of Fred Armisen, Margaret Cho, Dennis Rodman, Bobcat Goldthwait and many more.

Vice Does America: Abdullah Saeed, Wilbert L. Cooper and Martina De Alba take us up close and personal to the voting public during this most insanely weird election.

The Shane Smith Empire: Vice Media at a Glance

Key personnel: Shane Smith, CEO; Eddy Morretti, chief creative officer; Spike Jonze, creative director

Valuation: $4.2 billion-$4.5 billion

Key Investors: 21st Century Fox, Disney, Technology Crossover Ventures

Multiplatform Outlets:

Vice(HBO series): Emmy-winning newsmagazine exec produced by Bill Maher

Vice Books: Featuring collections of works and photos tied into the magazine

Vice Films: Outlet for feature-length documentary releases

The Vice Guide to Everything: MTV series featuring Vice Films releases and other documentary-based episodes.

Vicemagazine: Founded in 1994, focuses on art, culture, news

Vice Music: Company has released product from a variety of artists, including Snoop Dogg

VBS.tv: Company’s web-only video channel; launched in deal with MTV Networks and Logo Group.

Verticals: Six new ones launched, bringing total to 17

Worldwide channels: Plans to launch 20 more worldwide

SOURCE: Vice Media

Discovery Communications' American Heroes Channel is preparing a series on Adolf Hitler for next season.

Hitler is among the programs that are part of AHC's upfront pitch. Discovery on Wednesday (March 30) is holding a press briefing on its upfront plans.

With A+E Networks' H2 channel becoming Viceland, Discovery is pushing the idea that AHC is the only network still carrying programming about history. (Before it started doing more reality-style programming, History was sometimes described as "the Hitler network" for its focus on World War II.).

AHC is in negotiations to acquire some programming that had been running on H2.

Hitler, produced by KM Plus Media and Wildbear Entertainment, will draw on the latest research to tell the story of the dictator's life with new, surprising details, AHC said.

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.

The long-awaited launch of Viceland, Vice Media’s answer to stodgy cable programming, launched as expected in 70 million homes on Monday, taking a spot that was previously occupied by History Channel’s H2.

The launch has been anticipated for months and Vice Media has promised a steady stream of millennial focused programming, with unscripted shows like Gaycation, hosted by movie actress Ellen Page; the self-explanatory Weediquette and Balls Deep, which promises to be an in-depth investigative show. The channel is taking an unconventional path initially, airing a 13-hour block showing various staff members at the Vice Media offices in Brooklyn, N.Y., sitting at a conference table with a countdown clock superimposed on the screen, playing messages from callers who answered the question “What Keeps You Up At Night,” that was part of the channel’s ad campaign. Viceland took out a full-page ad in The New York Times with the question and a number to call.

Vice Media continues to air its news documentary show, Vice News, on Home Box Office. Founded by Shane Smith in 1994, Vice started out as a music magazine but evolve into a full-fleged multi-platform media group witH international television channels and a strong online presence. The company has attracted investment from media heavy hitters like the Walt Disney Co., 21st Century Fox and advertising giant WPP.

RELATED:Viceland Network Preview Video

Now that Vice Media finally has a cable channel, the question is whether it can successfully transition from a Web-based distributor of short- and long-form content to a full-fledged linear programmer.

Vice, which is known for its news and documentary content targeted to educated, 18-to-34-year-old millennials, will take over A+E Networks outlet H2 in January with its new, tentatively titled Viceland network. Viceland promises to provide a new outlet for younger viewers seeking quality programming and for advertisers seeking new opportunities to reach that very elusive audience, which is viewing less and less linear content.

Original shows that already have been earmarked for the new network include such titles as Gaycation, with actress Ellen Page; Huang’s World, featuring comedian Eddie Huang; Noisey; Vice World of Sports; Black Market; and Weediquette.

Vice’s established ability to monetize its video programming factored into the A+E transaction. While A+E — which invested $250 million in Vice Media in August 2014 — will oversee technical operations and distribution for Viceland, it will work with Vice on ad sales and sponsorships for the 70 million-plus-subscriber channel. A+E Networks, a joint venture of The Walt Disney Co. and Hearst, also owns A&E, History, Lifetime, LMN and FYI.

“We will test new and innovative monetization strategies placing Viceland at the pointy tip of the spear of the rapidly changing terrain of TV advertising,” Vice CEO and co-founder Shane Smith said in a release about the channel deal.

The strategy may sound good in theory, but the industry may not be ready for such a radical change in operations.

“There’s always resistance to different approaches, particularly by established advertisers,” Bill Carroll, senior vice president and director of content strategy for Katz Media Group, said. “But over time, all of them come to the realization — especially if they’re trying to reach a certain segment of the market — that they have to go where those consumers are. There are advertisers that are targeting this younger, more educated demographic and are more willing to experiment in that way.”

Vice will almost certainly bring a younger viewer to H2, which during the third quarter had a median average age of 57. (For more on H2’s performance, see the Ratings Intelligence breakdown.)

HBO certainly has benefited from having the Vice brand on its network. The premium service’s Vice on HBO news and documentary program has averaged 897,000 viewers this year, up from 747,000 viewers in 2014 and 821,000 in its debut season, according to Nielsen live-plus-seven-day ratings.

“Vice has a bold voice and a distinctive model in the marketplace,” Nancy Dubuc, CEO of A+E Networks, said in the deal release. “This channel represents a strategic fit and a new direction for the future of our portfolio of media assets.”

RELATED: The Viceland Network Preview Video

A+E Networks — months after a transaction was first reported as imminent, at the upfronts and newfronts in May — and Vice Media have struck struck a deal that will see the H2 cable network reformatted into a new programming entity with the working title Viceland.

A+E Networks (a joint venture of The Walt Disney Co. and Hearst) hopes the new network, powered by the online content purveyor, will draw advertiser-friendly-age viewers to complement the programmer’s existing History, Lifetime and LMN networks, plus the recently reformatted FYI. Here is an overview of H2’s programming history, with charts and reporting by Ratings Intelligence editor A.J. Katz.

H2

History International was rebranded as H2 at the start of Q4 2011, with its programming getting refocused to feature documentary content from sister network History (before History shifted towards more reality series).

In addition to airing repeats of newer History series like Vikings, Pawn Stars and The Curse of Oak Island, among others, H2 has provided its viewers with original programs over the years.

Top H2 series over time include America Unearthed, America’s Book of Secrets, and newer ones like Brad Meltzer’s Lost History, and In Search of Aliens.

America Unearthed was H2’s first original series, and stands as the channel’s highest-rated and most-watched series of all time. The series premiered in December 2012. Season 3 ended in Q1 2015.

Modern Marvels, Ancient Aliens and The Universe and were History originals that would eventually leave History and air new episodes on H2.

Seventy-seven telecasts of Ancient Aliens aired on H2 from October 2011 through December 2014. H2 aired new episodes beginning in February of 2012; the series returned to History in 2015.

Ninety-eight telecasts of Modern Marvels aired from the network’s inception in September 2011 through 2012; and 70 telecasts of The Universe aired from 2011 to 2014.

H2 has not premiered an original series in 2015. Museum Men (pictured), airing from last November through this February, was H2’s final original.

RATINGS

Average total viewers for H2 hit a high in 2014. First-quarter 2014 was the most-watched quarter in network history. Q4 2014 was not far behind. After an annual increase in total viewers from the end of 2011 through 2014, H2 started to lose steam this year.

Primetime ratings for H2 in P18-49, 25-54 and total viewers have declined on a quarter-to-quarter basis in 2015 to date. H2 is currently averaging 301,000 total live-plus-same-day viewers this quarter to date, its lowest quarterly average since Q3 of 2013. The median age of an H2 viewer this quarter is an all-time high 57.8 years old.

This viewership drop is no surprise. When the Vice deal heated up this spring, all premieres were moved from H2 to History in order to try to gain back some of the core viewers. H2 is mainly airing repeats of History/H2 programming as a result of the upcoming rebrand.

It’s official: A+E Networks will team with online global company Vice Media to create a new 24-hour channel with a working title of Viceland.

Viceland will take over A+E Networks outlet H2 in early 2016 and re-launch to approximately 70 million homes, said A+E officials. The network is currently in 74 million homes, per Nielsen.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Published reports have said the Walt Disney Co. – which owns A+E Networks along with Hearst Corp. – will also invest in the channel. A&E last year invested $250 million for a 10% share in Vice Media.

The network, which had been rumored about since early spring, provides A+E Networks with a millennial-targeted channel to complement its older-skewing services Lifetime, History and A&E. 

“Vice has a bold voice and a distinctive model in the marketplace," Nancy Dubuc, president and CEO of A+E Networks, said in a release. “This channel represents a strategic fit and a new direction for the future of our portfolio of media assets.”

For Vice, the deal provides the online company with a linear cable service, providing the company with another platform to distributed its original content, according to Shane Smith, Vice co-founder and CEO.

“This network is the next step in the evolution of our brand and the first step in our global roll-out of networks around the world,” Smith said. “First: It allows us to be truly platform agnostic and enable our audience to view our content wherever they want. Second: It represents a continued growth in our content quality and raises the ceiling even higher for our brilliant teams to attack stories from long form features to multi-episode series and even short form interstitials that will challenge the accepted norms of current TV viewing. Third: We will test new and innovative monetization strategies placing Viceland at the pointy tip of the spear of the rapidly changing terrain of TV advertising."

A+E Networks will oversee technical operations and distribution and will work with Vice on ad sales and sponsorships. Vice will also handle all marketing across all platforms, utilizing its various relationships with partners across mobile and digital. 

Director and Vice partner Spike Jonze will oversee production of the channel, which will feature hundreds of hours of original programming produced by Vice. New primetime shows slates for Viceland include Gaycation (with Ellen Page and Ian Daniel), Huang’s World (with Eddie Huang), Noisey (with Zach Goldbaum), Vice World Of Sports (with Sal Masekela), Black Market (with Michael K. Williams), Flophouse, Party Legends and Weediquette (with Krishna Andavolu). Jonze, Smith and other Vice officials had previewed the lineup for reporters and advertisers in May at a Newfronts event, before Vice was ready to confirm publicly the plans for the network. At the time, Vice merely said, optimistically, the shows were "coming this fall." 

A+E Networks said Jana Bennett has been promoted to president and general manger of History, after previously overseeing FYI and LMN. She replaces Dirk Hoogstra, whom A+E said will "return to his roots in independent production." The company will seek a replacement for Bennett at FYI and LMN as her new appointment is immediate. Bennett, who came to A+E from the BBC in 2013, reports to A&E and History president Paul Buccieri and will be responsible for all strategic planning, programming, marketing and brand development at History and H2, A+E said.

In a release, Nancy Dubuc, President and CEO of A+E Networks, said: “Jana has one of the strongest track records building and shaping global brands – first at the BBC and now here at A+E Networks. She joined our company with the mandate to take our networks into new and exciting places and what she’s done with FYI in such a short amount of time is remarkable. HISTORY and H2 will greatly benefit from her creative prowess and steady stewardship.”

Buccieri said, “I have long been a fan of Jana’s work, particularly with what she’s done with FYI and LMN. Her vast experience in all genres of programming, marketing, distribution and digital is unparalleled and I’m very much looking forward to working with her at History.”

And Bennett, in the release, said: “I have a passion for HISTORY – where we’ve come from and where we are headed. I am thrilled that I have been asked by Nancy and Paul to lead the team that will bring one of the strongest and most respected brands across the globe into new and exciting territory.”

Of Hoogstra, Bennett said in the release: “We thank Dirk for his many contributions to HISTORY. He was the force behind some of the network’s greatest successes that helped propel HISTORY to become one of entertainment’s top brands.” 

A+E highlighted Bennett's work rebranding BIO to FYI in July 2014 (and later that year in Canada and Southeast Asian markets), achieving double-digit ratings growth and introducing new series and franchises including Married at First Sight, Arranged, Seven Year Switch and a pair of "Tiny House" shows. At LMN (rebranded from Lifetime Movie Network) she has added new original unscripted series and driven ratings gains in all day parts among women ages 25-54, A+E said.

History, meanwhile, has had some ratings disappointments, including the Memorial Day miniseries Texas Rising. For the summer, the network's primetime viewing average declined by 20%, to 1.525 million from 1.913 million, according to one analysis of Nielsen figures. A+E also has been making some executive realignments, such as broadening Lifetime executive vice president and general manager Rob Sharenow's duties to including being EVP and GM at A&E Network.

Bennett was president of BBC World Wide Networks & Global BBC iPlayer before coming to A+E Networks, which is a joint venture of Disney-ABC Television Group and Hearst Corp. Earlier in her career, she was general manager of TLC network.

New A&E chief Rob Sharenow has reached to a sister service in naming a head of programming.

Elaine Frontain Bryant, who has been working at History as senior vice president, development and programming, was named A&E's executive vice president and head of programming. The new job marks a return to A&E, where she served as senior vice president non-fiction and alternative programming from 2005-13.

To fill Bryant’s role, Dirk Hoogstra, executive vice president and general manager of History and H2, has elevated Paul Cabana, who already runs programming for H2. Cabana will now lead both services' content initiatives as executive vice president and head of programming for History and H2.

Cabana reports to Hoogstra, while Frontain Bryant now reports to Sharenow, who also runs Lifetime.

“Elaine and Paul are visionary creative executives who over the past few years have been vital to the success of A+E Networks,” said Sharenow and Hoogstra in announcing the new programming structure.   “They’re both exceptional leaders with strong ties to the creative community who will be developing the next generation of brand-defining hits across multiple platforms for A&E, History and H2.”

While at A&E, Frontain Bryant was responsible for overseeing such hits as Duck Dynasty, Storage Wars and Shipping Wars. During her tenure at History she worked on The Curse of Oak Island, Gangland Undercover; and the development of scripted fair, including Texas Rising and Sons of Liberty.

Under Cabana's leadership since 2012, H2 has featured such series as America Unearthed, Brad Meltzer’s Lost History and America’s Book of Secrets.