HBO Cancels 'Vice News Tonight'
June 10 2019 - 3:17PM
Dow Jones News
By Patrick Thomas
HBO has canceled Vice Media's "Vice News Tonight," ending the
show's seven-year run with the premium channel.
The decision follows content strategy changes at HBO, said Nancy
Dubuc, Vice's chief executive, in a letter to staffers provided by
a Vice spokesperson. The media platform said it would continue to
produce a daily news show and that the distribution details will be
announced in the coming weeks.
Josh Tyrangiel, Vice's news chief and head of the show, will
step down from his role at the end of June. He will stay on as a
consultant until the show officially ends in September.
WarnerMedia's HBO is a unit of AT&T Inc., which has been
shaking up the executive ranks at WarnerMedia since it acquired the
business a year ago. Earlier this year, HBO Chairman and CEO
Richard Plepler and Turner President David Levy announced their
resignations.
Vice Media named former New York Post publisher and chief
executive Jesse Angelo to a newly created role of president, global
news and entertainment, overseeing Vice's news, television and
digital businesses. Ms. Dubuc said part of Mr. Angelo's role will
be to expand Vice's news presence.
Earlier this year Vice combined much of its online "verticals,"
including Munchies, Motherboard and Vice News, under the umbrella
of a revamped Vice.com. The company said its digital footprint
reaches more than 300 million people globally each month.
In 2015 Vice launched a cable channel, Viceland, just as cable
television's decline was accelerating. Meanwhile, Ms. Dubuc has
been focused on areas of growth at the company, including its
in-house advertising agency, Virtue.
Among the most memorable moments for "Vice News Tonight" was its
2017 coverage of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va.,
which turned deadly when a driver with Nazi sympathies rammed his
car into counterprotesters, killing a woman.
"We knit together the youngest audience in news with prestigious
storytelling like no one else in media," Mr. Tyrangiel said in a
memo to staff members Monday.
Vice, founded in 1994 as a Montreal punk 'zine, vaulted to the
front of the pack of digitally driven media companies in recent
years and became a top destination for "native" advertising,
content created for brands that is meant to mimic the look and feel
of editorial content. It diversified into films and TV, including
the cable-TV channel Viceland.
Ms. Dubuc took the reins from co-founder Shane Smith in May 2018
in the wake of reports of sexual harassment at the company that
prompted apologies from Vice for what it called its "boys club"
culture.
Write to Patrick Thomas at Patrick.Thomas@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 10, 2019 15:02 ET (19:02 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
AT&T (NYSE:T)
Historical Stock Chart
From Mar 2024 to Apr 2024
AT&T (NYSE:T)
Historical Stock Chart
From Apr 2023 to Apr 2024