Vice touts global expansion in news saying it can do ‘whatever the fuck we want to do’

L:R Vice creative director Spike Jonze CEO Shane Smith at the Vice Newfront event. Source: Emily Winiker

Vice has claimed last year’s $500m cash injection has given the youth orientated media brand a licence to reinvent the contemporary news model without worrying about advertising.

Addressing US media buyers on Friday Vice co-founder Shane Smith talked about the deal with Technology Crossover Ventures and TV brand A+E Networks, saying how the linear TV channel on A+E which is likely to come as part of the deal plus capital, would allow Vice to do “whatever the fuck we want to do”.

“We took what we were doing online and we went to gold standard of TV – which is HBO,” said Smith. “They then came to us and said instead of doing this every week do you want to do this everyday plus 12 specials a year.