Vice launches news channel

Youth media brand Vice has launched a new online video current affairs and documentary channel, featuring hundreds of hours of programming from around the world.

Vice News joins the company’s rapidly growing portfolio of video-driven web destinations, including a string of YouTube channels, with the latter site serving as the main distribution outlet for the new brand.

Documentaries at launch include Killing Time in Kandahar, an investigation into the first Spring fighting season between the Taliban and the Afghan National Army (ANA) without the presence of US troops.

Through a mix of long- and short-form documentaries, plus Vine clips, Instagram pics and live-streaming, Vice News promises to “fill a void left by mainstream media and news aggregation websites struggling to engage youth audiences and offer high-quality compelling digital programming.”

The vicenews.com website will host all the content, with a dedicated YouTube channel featuring all the video, which will in turn be syndicated to online publishers and linear TV channels.

The launch comes after the firm struck a joint venture with FremantleMedia last month, collaborated with Greek broadcaster Antenna in January and allied with the UK’s Pulse Media in November.

21st Century Fox bought a minority stake in Vice, which also produces a series for HBO, last summer.