Right before everyone skipped town for the long Labor Day weekend, A+E Networks snuck in an interesting bit of news: the Hearst Corp-Disney/ABC co-venture revealed it had taken a 10 percent stake in current Digital Media It Company, Vice Media.
The cost? $250 million, which would peg the company’s overall valuation at $2.5 billion.
The investment by A+E Networks came just as Time Warner and Vice ended negotiations over a possible merger with struggling HLN.
Vice CEO Shane Smith has built the 20-year old media company into the In-Your-Face darling of the content world, tackling subjects ranging from North Korea under Kim Jong Un to what it’s really like in the new “capital” of the Islamic State.
While the company has made a name for itself in the digital space, it also produces an Emmy-winning half-hour show for HBO.
Smith and former Viacom CEO Tom Freston—who is also an investor in Vice—delivered the keynote address at this year’s annual PromaxBDA conference in New York.
Read More: The Hollywood Reporter
Brief Take: Vice is hoping the A+E investment will give it the television platform it needs to move its content beyond the digital audience that has built it up over the past several years. The cash infusion doesn’t hurt, either.
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