Spike Jonze will be co-president of Viceland, the new cable network from Vice Media slated to launch Feb. 29 in partnership with A+E Networks. Jonze will be joined in the role by chief creative officer Eddy Moretti.

“It’s a pretty crazy moment for us that someone’s giving us a TV channel,” Jonze said in a statement. “We’re trying to make the whole thing just be driven by creativity and making something that feels personal. And the exciting thing about my job is handing over this channel to artists and filmmakers who inspire us, both here inside Vice and in the outside world.”

Joining them as general manager is Guy Slattery, who comes over from A+E Networks where he was executive VP of marketing for A&E, History and H2 Networks.

Viceland is replacing A+E’s H2 channel, and will be distributed in about 71 million homes, according to Variety.

Viceland will feature original programming developed and produced by Vice entirely in-house, and targeting millennials who are used to watching the content online. Whether placing that content on a linear channel will attract those millennials to traditional platforms that they’ve been shunning remains to be seen.

Jonze and Moratti are overseeing all of Viceland’s content, including primetime programming, the “Vice Lab” interstitials and acquisitions strategy. The duo also is responsible for the development of the network’s brand identity.

Slattery will be responsible for day-to-day operations, including scheduling, marketing, research and revenue. In addition, Slattery will manage production and development units with Viceland head of production Derek Freda.

Jonze has served as Vice’s creative director since 2006, and will continue to work on other projects. He won an Oscar for writing the original screenplay for Her, and also has written and directed such films as Where the Wild Things Are, Adaptation and Being John Malkovich. He’s also co-creator and producer of the Jackass TV shows and films, a co-founder of Dirt Magazine, Grand Royal Magazine, and the director of numerous music videos and commercials.

Moretti has been at Vice since 2000, and also oversees Vice Films, which is a new feature-film partnership with 20th Century Fox. He’s also a co-executive producer with Vice CEO Shane Smith and Bill Maher on Vice’s HBO series.

At A+E, Slattery led the 2014 rebranding of A&E under new tagline “Be Original” and the strategy for Bio’s conversion to FYI Network. Prior to joining A&E in 2006, he worked for National Geographic Channels International.

Vice’s investors include Walt Disney Co.; A+E, a joint venture of Disney and Hearst; 21st Century Fox; Technology Crossover Ventures; and Raine Group.

Brief Take: That auteur filmmaker Spike Jonze is interested in running a cable channel is somewhat surprising, but maybe less so in an age in which Oscar winner and House of Cards’ star Kevin Spacey is going to run Relativity.

Read more: Variety

[Image courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter.]

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