The Walt Disney Company increased its ownership in Vice Media with 200 million dollars (180 million euros), the Financial Times wrote this week. The investment is in addition to the 200 million already invested Disney in November. Disney now get ten percent of the shares of Vice in hands.
But wait, what should be the maker of saccharine movies like Frozen with it on millennials oriented service, which documentaries about mutated wolves in Chernobyl and the rise of IS makes? Start a television channel, is the answer.
A global platform …
With a record label, video production, reclametak, magazine and ten online channels as vice News, Motherboard and Noisey, Vice is now in the books for four billion dollars. Service, which operates in 35 countries, focuses contrarian reports and video content on a target group of young people:. Millennials (now between 18 and 34 years old)
But journalistically area vice all long time no small player anymore. As recently published the first interview with the band Eagles of Death Metal after the terrorist attacks in Paris and it also regularly reports from conflict zones like Afghanistan, Ukraine and Syria.
… that is favored by investors
Enough reason for an impressive number of media investors to bond. In 2013 invested media giant 21st Centrury Fox example, $ 70 million in service, which the five percent of the shares received in hands. In 2014 invested both tech investor TCV, like television company A + E Networks, another 250 million dollars. A + E Networks was thus fifteen percent of the shares
Recently, Vice also announced to launch its own 24-hour television channel, In collaboration with A + E Networks:. Viceland. And it is precisely this cooperation is crucial for Disney, which together with media group Hearst owns A + E Networks.
Guaranteed Success
What do all these media giants with Vice? Simple: to expand. Preferably as soon as possible. In an interview with The Guardian this month said CEO Shane Smith with more media companies (Netflix and Sky to Discovery) to be in conversation. Why? To be able to start in Europe channels within eighteen months.
For Walt Disney, which in one year lost three million subscribers to ESPN, comes the opportunity to additionally invest timely. Where Disney’s older channel announced it off, it indeed could ride on the successes of the rapidly growing service. The $ 400 million that Disney now invest in total will go entirely to (existing) television programming. Think of a Viceland, but also on a daily newscast on Time Warner’s HBO.
Why television?
The step service now makes television is remarkable. In 2014, Smith claimed CEO, stated that ‘young people en masse leave the television “: an assertion which is true to some extent. Both in the Netherlands, and the United States look Millennials have become less ‘normal’ television.
Still, Vice Netherlands also examines the possibilities of a linear television. That tells Thijs Boon, CEO of Media Vice Benelux: “The intention to launch a television channel by cable next year. There have already had discussions with distributors, including KPN and Ziggo “
When asked why service makes the move to the mainstream medium of choice, Boon replied:
” One of the reasons that young people are watching less and less television is that there are not enough interesting content for this audience to see. We want to fill that gap and thereby correct the millennials loyalty. In addition, our strategy is very simple: we want to come in with service through each screen. As long as television is watched, that playing field for us so interesting. “
No comments:
Post a Comment