Vice Media is again taking it on the chin, after a report in the Wall Street Journal further chronicled its financial troubles, exacerbated by a write down by one of its biggest investors that appears to show it has lost nearly $1 billion in value over the past year.

The Journal said Vice, the home of about a dozen websites like Munchies, Free, Garage, Motherboard and Tonic as well as cable channel Viceland and HBO documentary news shows Vice Weekly and Vice News Tonight, will shed 10% to 15% of its workforce through attrition, adding that the media company has again fallen short of revenue targets. 

According to the Journal, citing people familiar with the privately held company, Vice revenue will be flat at between $600 million and $650 million in 2018, about $100 million short of forecasts. This is the second year in a row that the media company has fallen short of expectations and it is expected to lose about $50 million this year after losing $100 million in 2017.

Adding to the pressure is the revelation by the Walt Disney Co., that it took a $157 million write down of its investment in Vice in fiscal 2018, a move that suggests the company has lost about $800 million in its valuation in the past year.

Disney sunk about $400 million into Vice in 2015, sending its valuation to about $4 billion at the time, but it isn't the media company's biggest investor. That honor belongs to private equity firm TPG, whose $450 million investment in Vice last year pushed its total value to $5.7 billion. While Disney is still ahead of the game -- an $800 million drop in valuation still means Vice is valued at $4.9 billion -- it appears that Vice, once touted for its mastery in attracting the hip, millennial audience that every content producer and advertiser craves, may be loosening its grip.

Vice made moves earlier this year to right the ship and jettison the boys club culture that had led to a handful of sexual harassment allegations, hiring former A+E Networks chief Nancy Dubuc to head up the company while pushing founder and head bad boy Shane Smith to the role of executive chairman. A+E Networks is an investor in Vice too, it sunk $250 million into the company in 2014 and it was A+E's H2 channel that was transformed into Viceland, with great expectations, a year later.

Now Dubuc, about six months into the job -- she officially started on May 29 -- is making some big changes. In addition to the workforce reduction, which includes a hiring freeze initiated less than two months ago which has left about 220 of its 3,000 employee positions open, Vice plans, according to the Journal, to pare down its nearly one dozen digital sites by half.

Dubuc has pledged to make Vice profitable, but that too is a matter of interpretation. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter she said it would be soon, and "a lot sooner than most people think." At the New York TimesDealbook conference on Nov. 1, she told interlocutor Andrew Ross Sorkin, that Vice would be profitable "within a fiscal year."

Make no mistake that much of Vice's woes stem from its entrance into the cable realm. Vice has said it was profitable before it launched Viceland. And Dubuc, at the Dealbook conference, blamed placement problems -- Comcast for one, puts Viceland on one of its priciest tiers, not a great position to attract younger cost-conscious viewers -- and carriage difficulties for much of its woes.

Debuc also addressed valuation declines at the Dealbook conference, calling them irrelevant.

"Valuation only matters if your for sale and we’re not for sale right now," Dubuc said at the conference.

What she should have said was Vice isn't for sale yet. Because in her conversation with THR, she admitted that a sale of the company would be the most likely future outcome, although she would "like to see a good couple of years of continued growth under our belts first."

That puts Vice in a bit of a quandary. It probably would do better having some extra time to right the ship, but there is also the risk that the longer it takes, the harder it will be to find a buyer willing to pay what Vice thinks it’s worth.

The bottom line is that cable is hard. And it is especially hard if your target audience is incredibly fickle, like young people. Sure, they're the demo that every advertiser desires, but the rec room is littered with programmers that may have had the pulse of the next generation one year, only to find their arteries hardening the next. MTV, Nickelodeon, MySpace and others all had their moments in the 12-24 demographic sun, but this year's teenager is next year's young adult, with different interests, time constraints and viewing habits. And the generation behind them wants nothing to do with their definition of cool.

Dubuc isn’t unaware of that. At the Dealbook conference, she said that Vice is “in the service of youth permanently. That will continue to change because every generation is going to demand its own characteristics, its own flavor.”

Vice is not alone in its difficulties. Other digital powerhouses have announced layoffs as traffic has slowed. According to the Journal,  Vox Media and Refinery29 have missed revenue targets, with Refinery29 announcing in October that it will lay off 10% of its workforce. And Vox said earlier this month that it would fold popular tech site Recode into the parent and relaunch it as a section of Vox.com next year. No workforce reductions are planned, but the moves come as traffic has declined and some high-profile journalists have left for other ventures.

Dubuc is a talented, seasoned TV executive, and hopefully she can pilot a turnaround at the media company. And if the problem is increasing carriage alone, she is definitely the person you would want at the helm to do that. But convincing distributors to add on cable networks -- even ones targeted at younger viewers -- is harder than it used to be because there is a lot of evidence that younger viewers are shying away from linear TV in increasing numbers.

And the bigger problem Dubuc is facing is one that confronts every TV and media executive: how to get an audience brought up on free information to pay for it, or at least watch advertising in some form that foots the bill. With more media and entertainment alternatives cropping up almost every day, each with a thirst for scale, it’s a question that needs answering sooner rather than later. 

When Vice Media founder Shane Smith launched pay TV channel Viceland in 2016, he told the world that he was going to teach stodgy, old content companies how to succeed in the new media space.

“Twelve months from now, we’ll be on the cover of Time magazine as the guys who brought millennials back to TV,” Smith told The Hollywood Reporter in February 2016, just days before it launched Viceland.

A year later, it looks like the brash media mogul is the one getting schooled. For starters, despite all of Smith’s chest-thumping, Viceland is struggling with low ratings — lower than documentaries on H2, the channel it replaced — after missing revenue targets by a wide margin last year.

The company is scrambling to deal with a string of sexual harassment allegations, which arose amid a testosterone-fueled culture, that rocked its executive suite after a blistering expose in The New York Times a few months ago. And hanging over the company since 2016 are reports that even the digital growth isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, as more than half of Vice.com’s web traffic was from partner sites, a common-but-frowned-upon practice.

And there has been no shortage of drama in the C-suite: Vice Media suspended former co-president Andrew Creighton and fired chief digital officer Mike Germano, both named in the Times article, after the story broke. Smith, a swaggering CEO who peppers his conversations with F-bombs and bravado, will step down from that role to focus on strategy as executive chair.

Vice Media contends it is a company in transition, and observers point to a two-year-old quote from Smith where he said he would eventually hire a CEO so he could focus on deals and strategy. To them, he’s is making good on a promise. But there is no question Vice executives are finding the TV business a lot harder than they initially thought.

And some believe major investors, including A+E Networks, The Walt Disney Co. and private-equity firm TPG, are now concerned that the heady $5.7 billion valuation — nearly twice the market capitalization of AMC Networks, home of The Walking Dead — is suddenly starting to feel tentative and inflated, and want to avoid a freefall.

Thus, an old-school cable veteran, and a woman, has been named to lead the charge. A+E Networks CEO Nancy Dubuc, whose employment deal with the programmer was scheduled to expire at the end of the year, agreed March 13 to become Vice Media CEO.

Veteran Presence Steps In
Dubuc was a candidate for the top spot at Amazon Studios, a position that was formerly held by Roy Price, who was fired after several sexual harassment allegations came to light. That job went to NBC Entertainment president Jennifer Salke last month.

Despite its edgy programming (F*ck, That’s Delicious!) and anti-authoritarian bent, Vice is really chasing a universal goal in the TV business — reach a broader audience with fresh programming at a time when traditional TV ratings are down across the board and cable operators are losing subscribers.

Related: Cord-Cutters Not Returning to Pay TV, TiVo Study Finds

Dubuc’s appointment, at first glance, appears to solve many of Vice’s immediate ills. As a board member, she is well-versed in the inner workings of the company. As an executive who has championed diversity in the workplace and in society over the years, she gives the company immediate credibility and will have a zero-tolerance attitude toward harassment.

Dubuc is also a seasoned TV executive schooled in navigating the fickle environment of media and has a proven track record. She joined A+E Networks in 1999 as director of historical programming for The History Channel and steadily moved up the ranks, becoming A+E’s CEO in 2013.

On her watch, A+E has added scripted and reality programming hits, expanded its digital content reach and created A+E Ventures to invest in early-stage technology and content companies.

It was Dubuc who spearheaded A+E’s $250 million investment in Vice Media, leading to the creation of Viceland, formerly History International (H2). Dubuc brings a proven TV business acumen to her new role, but also sends a signal that the old days are over.

“I believe they have people who have been involved running networks,” Pivotal Research Group senior research analyst–advertising Brian Wieser said. “I think the problem was they needed a change at the top.”

Smith started Vice as a punk-rock fanzine in Montreal in the 1990s, growing it into a print, digital and video content behemoth with about 3,000 employees just two decades later. Vice Media also has a popular daily news show on HBO, Vice News.

From ’Zine to Empire
Besides the publishing business — it still cranks out magazines, as well as popular online news and culture websites — Vice Media has spread its tentacles into music with in-house record label Vice Music; digital and mobile advertising through Virtue Worldwide; and television and feature film production via Vice Films.

An aging rocker who two years ago bragged about dropping $300,000 while with friends at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, Smith has toned down his shtick considerably since his early days. He got married to a former Vice employee in 2009, had kids, bought a 14,000-square-foot, 12-bedroom mansion in Santa Monica, Calif., and apologized publicly for the company’s past “boys club” atmosphere.

But with women’s rights in the workplace finally gaining traction in the media business in the wake of the collapse of The Weinstein Co. and the downfall of media mogul Harvey Weinstein and others, the time was ripe for a regime change.

Still, in a statement announcing Dubuc’s appointment, the ever-brash Smith didn’t disappoint fans of his irreverent style. “We are a modern day Bonnie and Clyde, and we are going to take all your money,” he said of Dubuc and himself.

Then he quickly shifted to mimic the stodgy media executives he so gleefully ridiculed in the early days of Vice’s ascendance as the arbiter of millennial taste in news and entertainment. “As we go forward, Vice needs a best-in-class management team to harness all of this growth and control our destiny, whether it be staying independent, strategically partnering with someone or going public,” Smith said.

It’s possible more old-school media types are destined for the Vice payroll, and perhaps the company is tidying up for a sale or an initial public offering. But while IPOs and selling the company were both considered to be strong options just a few years ago — Disney was long speculated to be a buyer and talk of a public offering is always a hot topic — that has cooled considerably.

Disney appears to have its hands full at the moment with its pending $66.1 billion purchase of 21st Century Fox assets. And Viceland’s struggles have caused some to believe an IPO is on hold for at least this year.

“I can’t imagine how they possibly could anytime soon,” Wieser said of a sale or an IPO, adding that the cultural issues are likely the top priority.

That’s a big departure from less than a year ago, when private-equity player TPG Capital made a $450 million investment for an 8% stake in Vice, pushing its valuation to $5.7 billion.

At that current level, Vice Media is worth nearly twice as much AMC Networks (with a market cap of $3.1 billion), home of the most-watched show on ad-supported pay TV, The Walking Dead. And its market cap is more than three times higher than the next millennial-focused digital darling, BuzzFeed, valued at about $1.7 billion.

But in a short time, Vice has slipped from new media standard-bearer to a company struggling to hold its place in the ever-shifting content sands. Vice missed its 2017 revenue target by $100 million, due mostly to Viceland, and is being pressured by its investors to turn a profit in 2018, according to a February report in The Wall Street Journal.

People familiar with the channel have countered that it is extremely rare for a two-year-old network to turn a profit, adding that while Viceland fell short of revenue targets, the shortfall was a fraction of the Journal’s $100 million estimate. They said overall revenue at Vice Media was up by double-digit percentages in 2017 and that comparing Viceland, which is available in about 70 million homes, to fully distributed networks is unfair. A better comparison is with networks such as ESPNU, SundanceTV or Cooking Channel, all of which had lower ratings than Viceland, they added.

Still, according to industry researcher Kagan, a unit of S&P Global, Viceland gets about 6 cents per subscriber per month in affiliate fees, about the same as it did when it was A+E’s H2 channel. But even with a younger audience, the channel has fallen short in terms of advertising.

Kagan estimated that net advertising revenue at the channel plunged from $60.9 million at the end of 2015, when it was still H2, to $32.4 million at the end of 2016. That figure was more than halved to $14.3 million in 2017 as low ratings decimated sales; it should rise slightly to $18.1 million in 2018.

Kagan analyst Derek Baine estimates Viceland posted negative cash flow of $16 million for 2017 and will post a similar number for 2018. By comparison, H2 generated $9 million in positive cash flow in 2016 for A+E Networks.

“Viceland is not doing very well,” Baine said.

Viceland counters that although it delivers only 60% of the primetime impressions that H2 did in its target demo of adults 18 to 49 (2017 vs. 2015), it has improved its appeal with attractive advertising targets. Viceland’s audience has higher income, more education and is younger and more multicultural than H2 viewers were.

For ad buyers, Viceland has been a mixed bag.

“Generally speaking, they’ve skewed more male and younger than general TV, so it’s a success in that regard,” Horizon Media co-chief investment officer David Campanelli said. “But while the skew is generally on target, the ratings are lower than most have hoped.”

With Viceland’s ad load, clients are encouraged to use more branded content to reach consumers, similar to how Vice uses branded content online. “We have done some good branded content with them,” Campanelli said. “They have great production capabilities in-house, so it is very turnkey.”

The average age of a Viceland viewer is around 40 years old — compared with 57 for H2 — but that skews even younger for premiere airings of original shows and for different platforms. In some cases, the average age falls to the mid 30s or high 20s.

Viceland has been growing and adding sponsors, A+E Networks executive vice president for advertising Peter Olsen said. “I think the acceptance of the network is growing,” he said. “Our advertising is up, with 180 clients on board now, which is good.”

Viceland is one of the cable networks with the fewest ads, Olsen noted, at just eight minutes per hour — about half the amount of other channels. That low commercial load keeps viewers engaged.

“It’s the best network of all for retention through breaks, engagement through breaks,” he said, citing network research. “That’s pretty encouraging.”

Playing a Long Game
“For a network in 70 million homes, they’re doing decent ratings numbers, the revenue stream is predictable, and they’ve increased the client base,” said one person familiar with the company who asked not to be named. “It’s a long game and they’re still only two years in.”

According to media reports, Viceland drew an average primetime rating of 0.1 from Sept. 25 through Feb. 4, or about 106,000 viewers. That’s up about 10.4% from last year and in line with such networks as Smithsonian Channel, Azteca America and GAC.

It’s not uncommon for new networks to take some time to find their footing. Ratings for OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network were dismal early on compared with Discovery Health, which it replaced in 2011.

Wieser said he can’t think of any network that became a hit from the start. And in today’s climate, with distributors and programmers looking to reduce the number of channels they offer, it’s even more unlikely.

Viceland’s attraction is its mixture of shows with edgier titles like F*ck That’s Delicious (chronicling the gastronomic adventures of rapper Action Bronson) and Slutever (where sex writer Karley Sciortino explores female sexuality), to sponsored shows like Beerland (bankrolled by Anheuser-Busch InBev and featuring Meg Gill, founder of its craft beer brand Golden Road Brewing, as she travels the country meeting home brewers) to shows in off-network syndication like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Vice also has managed to attract a few Emmy nominations for Gaycation, a documentary highlighting LGBTQ cultures around the world, hosted by actor Ellen Page and producer Ian Daniel, and for the Gloria Steinem-hosted Woman.

But to attract ratings, the network may have to fall back on a tried and true TV tenet: More money equals more quality content.

Viceland is spending about the same on programming as its H2 predecessor did, according to Kagan — $72.4 million on original and acquired programming in 2016, versus $69.4 million for H2 in 2015. Kagan also estimated that programming spend will grow to $83 million by the end of 2018.

Wieser said Viceland’s success or failure may finally rely on how much of a commitment Vice Media is willing to make to programming. And that will depend on how much it is able to fund the business.

Vice has already raised more than $1 billion from investors like Disney, A+E Networks, TPG Capital and 21st Century Fox. Now that it is unlikely to be raising more capital in the near term, it is forced to show investors it can fund the business on its own.

Dubuc has had experience turning networks around. When she took the helm of History in 2007, she took what was then a documentary-heavy network and spiced it up with reality programming such as Ice Road Truckers, Ax Men, Swamp People and Pawn Stars, vaulting it from No. 11 among viewers aged 25-54 to No. 4. At A&E, Dubuc launched Duck Dynasty, which outpaced Fox’s American Idol in its heyday, and brought scripted hits like Bates Motel to the lineup. Viceland and its investors are hoping she can keep that streak intact.

“If you’re Vice and you invested $100 million in programming, you would get some viewership but not a lot,” Wieser said. “If you spend $1 billion to support Viceland, you’d have a business. It might lose money, but it would be a business.”

Nancy Dubuc, stepping down as CEO of A+E Networks, is becoming CEO of Vice Media, succeeding founder Shane Smith.

Smith will become executive chairman of Vice, which has been challenged by disappointing revenue growth and accusations that women who work there have been subject to sexual harassment.

Under Dubuc, A+E was one of a handful of traditional media companies that invested in Vice. A+E also formed a joint venture with Vice to create the Viceland cable network, which is aimed at younger viewers.

Related: Nancy Dubuc to Leave A+E Networks

"Shane and the team at Vice have done what all of us aspire to do - build a brand and make content that people really care about,” said Dubuc. "Vice speaks to a generation that defines today’s cultural conversation, and the opportunity to partner with all of the incredibly creative people across the entire company was one of those rare moments in a career.”

Dubuc had been a candidate to run Amazon Studios, succeeding Roy Price, who departed amid sexual harassment claims.

She was also negotiating a new contract with A+E’s owners, Hearst and the Walt Disney Co., and those talks broke down.

Smith said that in his new role he would focus on strategic deals and content development.

Dubuc gives Vice an experienced chief executive with a proven record of running a media company and producing and distributing programming.

“Why Nancy Dubuc? Simply put, because rarely in business do you get to work in a perfect partnership,” said Smith.

“First off, she is better than me at everything," he added. "Second, it allows me to move to executive chairman, where I can concentrate on the only things that I am good at - content and deals. Thirdly, as we go forward Vice needs a best-in-class management team to harness all of this growth and control our own destiny, whether it be staying independent, strategically partnering with someone or going public.,” Smith added. “Lastly, I get to work with one of my best friends and media heroes. We are a modern day Bonnie and Clyde, and we are going to take all your money.”

Here is a memo Smith sent to Vice staffers:

As many of you have read, I have been in discussions with my friend, my partner, and board member Nancy Dubuc, to join the VICE family and become my successor as CEO.

While we tried our damnedest to have everything signed, sealed and delivered before sharing it with you and with the rest of the world, we seemingly can’t take a crap in this town without it leaking to the press.
Of course, as the bellwether for the modern media age, we should be no stranger to the rumors and speculation.

Today we put this speculation to rest and turn our focus toward executing our growth plans to maintain our hegemonic place atop the new media landscape which, in turn, will give us the ability to control our own destiny.

As founders, we take pride in the fact that we built an institution with some level of permanence, and while VICE has a strong foundation for the future, we realize that we need help for the next phase of our growth. We need to surround ourselves with the right people so our company, and our thousands of employees globally, can flourish.

In looking for a professional CEO, we are in need of one who can master; the content world, the digital world, the business world, and who is at the same time an operator extraordinaire. These people are obviously few and far between, but I believe we have found the absolute best in class with Nancy.

Nancy and I have spent much time deliberating on the best way for us to partner up in a shared mission of maximizing the great potential this company holds. She believes in VICE, she believes in our mission, and she believes in all of you.

Nancy has clearly proven herself with her stewardship of A&E Networks. As a partner, she’s helped grow VICELAND internationally and into the second fastest growing network in all of US cable among our audience.

Since joining our board, Nancy has been a trusted confidante whose every recommendation is driven by making the best programming possible. She has the rare combination of business and content chops, and an unparalleled record in running the daily operations of a sprawling global media company like our own.

A lot of people have been asking me what this means for me personally. Well, I have always said that I am good at two things, 1) creating content and 2) making deals, so that’s what I’m going to do. I will focus my energy on raising the bar for our content, and will serve as Executive Chairman of the Board.

Again, as I always say “I’Union fait la Force” or “together we are stronger.” This marks a new period in VICE’s history that will make us infinitely stronger. Nancy will run the company day to day from New York and we will work lock step with our partners, management, employees and board in making sure that VICE maintains its position as the leader of new media, and delivers on its commitment to 50/50 by 2020 as we work to become the most progressive workplace in the world.

This Friday we will be hosting a town hall in Brooklyn to welcome Nancy and introduce her to all of you. I hope that you will welcome her to the company with the same enthusiasm and open arms that I have.

Love S

Developments this week at BuzzFeed, Vice and Spotify underscore the velocity of over-the-top activity and the race to reach young viewers. In the context of Comcast's rationale this month that millennial viewers were tuned to the Olympics via NBC's digital platforms, this week's flurry of OTT programming movement sets the stage for intense competition between new and old media as well as among the corporations that back them.

To be sure, this week's activities were largely structural and conceptual, not surprising for a languid summer week. But collectively, they are a reminder that OTT providers are aggressively going after audiences that cable and other multichannel platforms are losing.

BuzzFeed's plan to reorganize itself into Entertainment and News departments also demonstrates that new media companies are learning lessons from their predecessors. BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti compared the split to Ted Turner's creation of TBS and CNN.

“Back in the day, all the big incumbents would criticize CNN and TBS and make fun of them, saying they were never going to make it and that they weren’t legitimate,” Peretti told Vanity Fair. "Ted Turner didn’t care what anyone thought, and he built a news and entertainment empire side by side.”

In his memo to staff explaining the restructuring, Peretti said the company cannot organize "around a format or technology."  He said that going forward, the BuzzFeed ventures should "take full advantage of many formats and technologies."

"Having a single 'video department' in 2016 makes about as much sense as having a 'mobile department,'" Peretti said. "As digital video becomes ubiquitous, every major initiative at BuzzFeed around the world will find an expression as video, just like everything we do works on mobile and social platforms."

Under the new structure, the newly created BuzzFeed Entertainment group, headed by current BuzzFeed Motion Pictures president Ze Frank, will include video, lists, quizzes and micro-content. BuzzFeed News, under editor-in-chief Ben Smith, will handle global news, health and video news.

NBCUniversal invested $200 million into BuzzFeed last year, a reminder that old media recognizes where its viewers are heading.

At Vice, the signs of change are more speculative, fueled in part by some raucous remarks this week by CEO Shane Smith and a Wall Street Journal report that The Walt Disney Co. may acquire the 82 percent of Vice that it doesn’t already own. Disney pumped $200 million into Vice last December.

Prior to delivering the prestigious MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival on Wednesday (Aug. 24), Smith told reporters that it makes sense to sell Vice while it is at “the peak of media valuations.” But he added that Disney has not yet made an offer. The WSJ report put Vice's current valuation at nearly $4.5 billion. Smith suggested that Vice could be worth $50 billion in three or four years.

“If you look at the brands like Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars that have [sold] to Disney, they have all gotten bigger,” Shane was quoted as saying in the WSJ.

On a more mundane level, Spotify -- known for its music dominance -- last week fulfilled its May promise to move into the video realm with original programming. Its first documentary series, Metallica: The Early Years, debuted last weekend. Chapter One (about 8 minutes long) includes exclusive interviews with the band plus archival footage. It was available on YouTube; the next three Metallica segments are available only on the mobile version of Spotify’s app.

Spotify's Landmark series of video music stories will continue with a series on the Beach Boys’s iconic Pet Sounds album.

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

Vice Media and ESPN have entered into a distribution and production agreement where the millennial-focused content producer will create new original series to air exclusively on ESPN properties – including TV, digital and mobile – through its Vice Sports unit, while select films from ESPN’s documentary series 30 for 30 will air on the Viceland pay TV channel.

"Growing up watching ESPN I came to love the brand and their content. Maybe a little too much. The amount of manly tears shed over various 30 for 30’s throughout the years has been nothing short of embarrassing,” said Vice Media co-founder and CEO Shane Smith said in a statement. “To be teaming up with ESPN, creating brand new sports shows for them, and then showing 30 for 30’s on Viceland is perhaps one of the favorite moments in my professional life. I can now die a happy man. "

As part of the deal Vice Sports and ESPN Films will create a new short-form series to run across both ESPN and Vice properties, focusing on athletes, characters and championship events that reside outside the mainstream. In addition, Vice and ESPN are developing a short-form animated series.

On the existing programming side, select Vice Sports series like The Clubhouse, will run across ESPN’s linear and digital channels, including WatchESPN. ESPN will feature digital cutdowns of the Viceland show VICE World of Sports, after programming premieres on Viceland. Full episodes of VICE World of Sports will air on ESPN properties.

“Evoking manly tears from Shane Smith is no small task, and I take immense pride in that,” ESPN president and Disney Media Networks Co-Chairman John Skipper said in a statement.  “Shane and the team at Vice do an extraordinary job presenting stories through their own, very unique lens – and working with them will help to bring a new perspective to our storytelling. I am confident that the content borne out of this collaboration will be a win for fans of ESPN, Vice and storytelling in general. And I applaud Shane for understanding that television is the smartest path to worldwide leadership.”

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.

NEW YORK — It wasn’t high art, but as roasts go, the one for Vice Media founder and CEO Shane Smith during a fundraiser for the Center for Communications Nov. 18 briefly showed a different side of the notorious media bad boy, who was given the Center’s Frank Stanton Award for Excellence in Communication.

Stanton was president of CBS from 1946 to 1971, overseeing the network’s Golden Age for journalists like Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather. Roasts are notoriously di_ cult to do, and not every joke hit its mark — there were a lot about Smith’s weight and prodigious appetites: he reportedly spent $300,000 on a single dinner with friends in Las Vegas during the International CES in January.

But amid the Sex Pistols intro music (Smith’s favorite band) and the steady stream of F-bombs — even from so-called staid TV executives — former Viacom CEO and current Vice board member Tom Freston offered a peek at a side of Smith most don’t see.

Freston got one of the biggest laughs, reading a list of “poignant” late-night texts he supposedly received from Smith. Examples: “You calm down, you Minnesota dust climber!” and “Cross your balls, we’re going in!”

But Freston also read one that Smith sent to him on Nov. 13, while Freston, HBO chief Richard Plepler (also a presenter) and Time Warner Inc. chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes were having dinner in Paris (they were there for a U2 concert that was later canceled) mere blocks away from the terrorist attacks that night.

“Before we knew what was really going on, I heard a ping and I reached for my iPhone and read this message: ‘F**k dude, get out of there. Come home to me and be safe,’ ” Freston said. “That’s sort of Shane; he’s on all the time.”

— Mike Farrell

Comcast’s Alchin Shares a Coming Out Story at Film Screening

The LGBT community was out in force Nov. 23 for a special Washington, D.C., premiere screening of Comcast’s Focus Features film unit’s The Danish Girl, about Lili Elbe, the first recipient of sexual reassignment surgery.

In attendance were cast members and filmmakers, including director Tom Hooper and co-star Alicia Vikander. Star Eddie Redmayne, who plays Elbe and who won the Best Actor Oscar for Focus’s The Theory of Everything last year, was out of the country, but made apologies via video.

Also on hand at the Burke Theater at the U.S. Navy Memorial were Emmy winner Jeffrey Tambor and Bradley Whitford of Amazon Studios’s Transgender. Tambor also is familiar for a recent DirecTV ad campaign savaging large cable companies.

Introducing Hooper before the film was John Alchin, former co-chief financial officer of Comcast, who noted that the fact he is gay warranted a front-page story in a Philadelphia newspaper two decades ago. He said the reaction from Comcast’s Brian Roberts was, “good,” with him saying Alchin had made the company proud. Alchin said that when he told Brian’s father, Ralph, about his son’s comment, the late Comcast co-founder replied that he wasn’t surprised, as he had taught Brian everything he knew.

Alchin talked about the LGBT community’s progress toward “recognition, equality and inclusion.” But he suggested the fight continues, pointing to Houston, where an anti-discrimination ordinance was recently defeated.

“We still have lots more work to do,” Alchin said.

He also talked about Comcast’s “dedication to featuring diverse and independent voices on film and television” and pointed out that Comcast carries more than 160 independent networks.

Comcast has repeatedly been cited as among the best places to work for LGBT employees by the Human Rights Campaign.

— John Eggerton

New York – Vice Media CEO Shane Smith endured the endless barbs of friends and colleagues as the recipient of the Center for Communication’s Frank Stanton Award for Excellence in Communications Wednesday, but the new media wonder boy got the last and perhaps the best word in as the luncheon fundraising roast for the non-profit journalism education foundation came to a close.

Smith has been in the news a lot lately – after being courted by several media outlets he decided to do a deal with A+E Networks that will essentially hand over the H2 network to Vice. Smith’s brand of gonzo journalism has had an outlet on HBO for about three years, and the A+E relationship should only increase his profile.

Smith endured the typical and not-so-surprisingly profane barbs of executives – former Viacom CEO and current Vice Media board member Tom Freston and HBO chairman Richard Plepler – colleagues and comedians at the roast. Among his colleagues – lawyer, restauranteur, comedian and writer Eddie Huang and comedian Clare O’Kane, each managed to squeeze out a few laughs, mainly among the younger set. Most of Huang’s comments aren’t suitable for a family web site, but he did score a few points showing some e-mail exchanges with Smith, if not for anything but showing the audience Smith’s current e-mail address. O’Kane, who said she was Vice’s latest diversity hire, got a few laughs at the expense of the stodgy cable company – “To all the cable executives out there: You’re blowing it and I hate you,” she said.

Saturday Night Live and Portlandia star Fred Armisen came as his IFC show Documentary Now! (and Vice parody) character Jeremiah. Former MTV Jackass Johnny Knoxville came sporting his trademark wild hair and made a few comments about Smith’s weight – “Shane is the only Canadian [disgraced Toronto Mayor] Rob Ford can call a slob.” There were numerous jabs at an infamous $300,000 bill Smith and his buddies ran up at a Las Vegas restaurant, but for the most part, despite a few profanities, the insults were patently less offensive than your typical Comedy Central roast.

Then it was Smith’s turn.

Smith ran a short video getting back at some of his roasters for the afternoon – on Clare O’Kane: “Who?” On Johnny Knoxville: “Ah, Johnny Nowhere.” On Rich Plepler: “He called me up the other day and said, ‘I want you to do an expose on Netflix.’”

 “Everybody likes to talk about disruption, until you actually disrupt and then they hate you,” he said in a slight nod to the roast. He noted that Freston, also a recipient of the award, said he was fired from Viacom shortly after he got it, so the honor must be a way for Fox to get rid of him and Vice Media (21st Century Fox co-CEO James Murdoch is on the Center’s board of directors.)

But then Smith got a little more serious.

Smith lauded the Center for its nurturing of young journalists, something that he said could ultimately help outlets like Vice but also serve to better society.

“Media is probably the greatest single industry you can pick to go into;  it has so much power and so much responsibility with that power,” Smith said. “Bringing young people in to change up what we built and what you guys have built up in the past is the most exciting thing we can do.”   

Even before it launches its HBO nightly newscast and a documentary service on the former A&E H2 channel, Vice is laying out plans for expanding its TV and online video presence globally, and anticipates a public offering or sale in the coming year, founder/CEO Shane Smith said.

During a CNBC interview in London, Smith disclosed that Vice plans to launch at least a dozen TV networks throughout Europe during the coming year, continuing to concentrate on edgy programs for millennial audiences. He acknowledged that he move into TV is essential since 75% of the company's ad revenue comes from TV. Smith said he expects to use that money for expanded ventures into mobile and over-the-top delivery.

"You can actually take money from TV and put it into mobile, which is quite frankly more difficult to monetize," Smith said.

He offered no specific details about the upcoming U.S. launches, but said he expects revenue will near $1 billion this year and will double during the next few years. 

Vice is in acquisition talks "with everybody," at a $5 billion valuation, but that is "kind of at the top end where media could buy us today," Smith said. Hence he also is pondering a public offering.

"Around the end of this year, we're going to have to make a decision about whether we start to make the book to go public, or do a sort of larger, major strategic deal," Smith told CNBC.

During the London trip last week, Smith also revealed that Vice has produced 32 TV series  since early 2014 "for our network in America" and added that the content has been offered for pan-European regional and national deals.

"We are trying to navigate the morass of how you do telco deals simultaneous with terrestrial TV deals and keep growing our online platforms," Smith said, according to published reports. He has said he expects to announce distribution partners within the next couple months and begin TV rollout during the first quarter of 2016.

Separately, Vice has hired former Bloomberg chief content officer Josh Tyrangiel to run the company's new daily newscast for HBO; the launch date for the new five-nights-per week show has not been set. Tyrangiel had been at Bloomberg for six years.

Smith described Vice's HBO show as a venture that will "take news programming in a totally new direction. ... [It] needs the leadership of an expert who’s hungry to do things differently."  

Meanwhile, Netflix, which has accelerated its original content production, said it will add the edgy kind of documentaries that have been Vice's forte. During Netflix's recent earnings call, content chief Ted Sarandos said the streaming service could compete with Vice documentaries and with news-based shows such as HBO's Last Week Tonight With John Oliver.

"We're definitely being more adventurous in terms of the genres we're going into," Sarandos said during a presentation, during which Netflix CEO Reed Hastings asked, "What's the likelihood that we compete directly with Vice in the next two years?"

Sarandos simply said, "Probably high."