Vice to enter more countries

Vice Media is expanding its channel roll-out plans with up to 20 TV networks now being prepared to launch around the world this year.

Vice’s Shane Smith

The media group’s CEO and founder, Shane Smith, revealed the news at Vice’s NewFront pitch to advertisers, a presentation that he began while lying down.

Smith revealed in October that Vice would launch a dozen networks across Europe, with TV channels in the UK, Ireland and France already confirmed.

Vice is also plotting a presence in four new territories in Eastern Europe through its strategic alliance with Greece’s Antenna Group, as first revealed by C21.

The youth-skewing multimedia outfit, which has already rolled out its network in the US and Canada in conjunction with A+E Networks, unveiled its plans to launch Viceland at the end of last year.

Vice will also launch digital channels exploring health, gaming, travel, LGBTQ, money and sustainability in addition to its existing networks, which include Noisey, Motherboard and Munchies.

The expansion is the latest development for Vice, which recently said it was developing programming for ESPN, with some of the US broadcaster’s shows airing on Viceland in return.

Viceland in the US and Canada in features hundreds of hours of original programming, including Gaycation and Huang’s World.

Vice Media started life as a magazine in Montreal in 1994 before diversifying its business online and more recently attracting hefty investment from US media giants such as A+E Networks, Disney and Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox.