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As it celebrates its 20th anniversary as an alternative source of news and digital entertainment, VICE Media is considering deals to sell stakes to an impressive list of major media companies that includes Time Warner, Fox and Disney, reported the New York Times on Monday.
On Monday night, however, The Hollywood Reporter published a story saying these reports, as well as VICE’s value, were overblown, citing unnamed sources. None of the companies involved would be quoted on the record, but THR suggests whoever leaked to the New York Times was looking to create a bidding war.
Shane Smith—who, along with investor and ex-Viacom chief Tom Freston, addressed PromaxBDA The Conference earlier this month—began as a Montreal-based magazine in 1994 and has since become a major media brand targeting millennials worldwide. VICE, in 2014, is composed of a complex network of digital channels, a production studio, a print magazine, a record label, its own in-house creative services agency and a book-publishing division. This brand has 35 offices around the world, more than 5 million YouTube subscribers and partnerships with TV brands, which includes the second season of its on-air series, “VICE.” The weekly series airs on HBO and features “startling, groundbreaking stories from around the world,” according to the show, tackling stories the mainstream media might skip, says Smith:
And now that VICE’s stronghold in the news and entertainment arena is secure, analysts value the brand at anywhere from $1.5 billion to $2.5 billion, attracting the likes of Time Warner, Fox and Disney, all of whom are looking for new ways to reach elusive 18-34-year-olds. VICE previously has aligned itself with large media companies, its HBO series being one example, but a possible acquisition or minority stake would create an entirely different partnership for the brand.
The New York Times calls it “an insurgent image” that Smith and company have made for themselves, with reporters using hand-held cameras and inserting themselves into stories the way mainstream news outlets can’t do. Now VICE may have to join forces with those mainstream news outlets from whom it tried so hard to distance itself.
According to The Times, negotiations with Time Warner to take a minority stake in VICE has the best shot, using cable channel HLN as a negotiation tactic. A possible deal could have VICE taking over the channel with its own content, or it could become a joint venture between the two.
Should a deal with Time Warner go through, it would open up a whole new potential audience for VICE with a 24-hour TV network available in more than 100 million homes. And, in the end, that’s what VICE wants - a network home. “You can’t be MTV without a TV network,” said Smith.
Read more at The New York Times.
Brief Take: Joining up with one of these media conglomerates could create a branding problem for VICE. Since its inception in the ‘90s, Smith and his crew have publicly criticized companies like them (Smith actually called CNN ” a disaster” back in March) so any potential partnership could mean a major brand overhaul for the media company, or a brand clash between the content and its new network owner.
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