TORONTO – Rogers Media on Thursday made official something most knew – that its partnership with youth-centric Vice Media will lead to the launch of a new specialty TV channel, Viceland, in early 2016.
Rogers Media president Rick Brace told Cartt.ca that the long-gestating Viceland channel replacing the media group's existing Bio specialty channel will help his company close a gap to reach fickle 18-to-34-year-olds prized by advertisers. "It's about filling a void for Rogers Media," said Brace in his first public comments since taking the helm at the company’s media division.
"Targeting millennials and understanding their needs and their concerns and finding ways to create programming that resonates is fundamentally important," he explained, because traditional TV remains a force with marketers and the young, even as both increasingly migrate online.
That's why Rogers last year inked a $100 million joint venture deal with New York-based Vice Media. Rogers is banking on Vice's success with online video to finally punch into the digital realm to target elusive millennials. (And Vice is returning to Canada, where it launched as an underground magazine in Montreal 20 years ago.)
"We've been pushing so hard internationally for the last 15 years, launching offices throughout the world. And Canada was not growing as fast. What this (Rogers) deal did is enable us to execute on our vision," Suroosh Alvi, co-founder of Vice Media, told Cartt.ca.
That vision includes piggy-backing on Rogers' mobile and TV platforms so "our content travelling across all screens," he added.
Viceland is expected to launch as a 24/7 linear TV channel in Canada in either late February or early March 2016. It will become available to Canadian cable and satellite TV subscribers, starting with Rogers own network. Viceland is also launching in the U.S. market around the same time through a partnership with A+E Networks, replacing that company’s history-focused H2 channel in distributor lineups.
Shaw Media, which runs the H2 Canada, told Cartt.ca it will continue to acquire new original series from A+E for its Canadian specialty as the U.S. broadcaster plans to keep H2 as an international channel brand in over 68 territories outside the U.S. market.
Unscripted lifestyle and documentary-style content for Viceland in Canada will be produced partly in-house at Vice Canada's Toronto studio, and include nine series commissioned by Rogers like Abandonment Issues, Dead Set on Life and Shroom Boom.
"It's a tragedy on some level that the most popular shows in Canada are remakes of U.S. TV shows, when there's so much happening here and so many talented people.” – Suroosh Alvi, Vice Media
Viceland in Canada will also program content from Vice's international network of offices, including New York City, where Vice has around 200 edit suites humming on the production front.
Brace said Vice will drive the creative at Vice Canada's Toronto production hub, which has 150 employees currently, with plans to scale up to 180 in all. "We look to them as the experts in this niche," he explained. Vice will also sell Canadian-content series made in Toronto internationally through its global network, and split the proceeds via a sales partnership.
Vice's Alvi said the Toronto production studio has embraced a growing cadre of Canadian digital producers previously ignored by Canadian broadcasters more focused on international format adaptations.
"It's a tragedy on some level that the most popular shows in Canada are remakes of U.S. TV shows, when there's so much happening here and so many talented people," Alvi argued. "They want to produce amazing real content that will have an impact and make a difference. There was no place for them to go. There was a real need for what we're doing," he added.
At the same time, Vice Media will take the lead on creating branded content for the TV channel, something it has done well online, to complete Viceland's cross-platform potential. "The real home run for us is, we can sell ads on TV, but we can also monetize across a range of platforms, so it will be a collaboration," Brace explained. (Commercial air-time on Viceland in Canada will be sold via Rogers Media's affiliate group).
"They recognize us as the experts in sales in Canada, but we want to look to them to bring the sponsor to all platforms and take advantage of that," he added.
