Vice Media Group is killing off its namesake website.
In a leaked internal memo to Vice employees following a day of rumours surrounding the publication’s future, CEO Bruce Dixon confirmed that the company is undergoing widespread restructuring and will no longer publish content on its website. It’s currently unclear how long Vice’s website will remain online.
In the memo, Dixon says Vice Media Group will place “more emphasis on our social channels as we accelerate our discussions with partners to take our content to where it will be viewed most broadly.” What does this mean when translated from C-suite executive speak? Who knows, but it appears whatever is left of the Vice brand is adopting the classic “let’s go all in on socials” media strategy.
If you’re interested in a deep dive into Vice’s executive-led demise, check out Defector‘s excellent reporting on its slow but steady fall.
We need to start calling this what it is: executive theft. Vice was valued at $5.7 billion in 2017 and its c-suite has been paying itself six-figure *bonuses* as recently as LAST YEAR. Now they can’t afford employees or a website? Theft. https://t.co/47z0ju5eG9
— Adam Morgan (@adamm0rgan) February 22, 2024
“We create and produce outstanding original content true to the Vice brand. However, it is no longer cost-effective for us to distribute our digital content the way we have done previously. Moving forward, we will look to partner with established media companies to distribute our digital content, including news, on their global platforms, as we fully transition to a studio model,” Dixon continued.
In the memo, the CEO also says Vice Media Group is in the process of selling Refinery29, a woman-focused publication the company purchased back in 2019 for roughly $400 million USD (about $539 million CAD).
At one point, Vice Media Group was valued at $5.7 billion USD (roughly 7.6 billion CAD) before filing for bankruptcy protection last year and selling for $350 million USD (about $472 million) to a group of its former lenders, including Fortress Investment Group, Soros Fund Management and Monroe Capital.
The Vice Guide to Partying by Count Chocula III will always hold a special place in my heart pic.twitter.com/s9brjyNqZw
— Jane Is Busy (@JaneIsStressed) February 23, 2024
While it feels like a distant memory at this point, way back in 2014, Canadian telecom giant Rogers announced a $100 million three-year content and distribution partnership with Vice that most notably resulted in the creation of the Viceland TV channel. That deal ended in 2018.
Think what you want about Vice‘s edgelord tendencies, its notoriously low salaries, the accompanying lavish lifestyle its executives led, and its sometimes morally questionable reporting tactics, because amid all the turmoil, many of the publication’s reporters produced the most important journalism of the past decade, particularly in the context of Canada.
It’s disheartening to see genuinely impactful media publications that produced real, important work shutter their doors due to obvious executive-level mismanagement as the X blue checkmarks of the world rejoice at the death of “mainstream media.” I hope they enjoy getting obviously very reliable news from TikTokers with names like “42069zynman” that have dedicated their lives to wild QAnon conspiracies because, at this rate, that’s all that will be left in a few years.
At least we’ll always have this Vice classic.
Vice was originally founded in 1994 in Montreal as a youth-focused magazine.
Image credit: Vice
