At a time when most media companies are coming to grips with audiences drifting away from traditional television, Vice Media is going the other way. The cable channel Viceland, which takes over A+E Networks’ H2, launches today.
Most of the first shows on Viceland will run between four and eight episodes for their debut seasons. One of the first shows is Gaycation, in which actress Ellen Page and her friend Ian Daniel visit LGBT communities around the world. Model Hailey Gates and rapper Action Bronson are also contributing shows. There will also be a sports series called Vice World of Sports and a journalism series called Balls Deep.
Director Spike Jonze, who has an Oscar for writing 2013’s Her, is creative director and co-president of the network. In a new interview with Vice, Jonze admitted that he had never helped create a TV channel before.
“This is less of a TV channel and more of a laboratory. We are thinking about this as an experiment in terms of the ways ideas are being made,” Jonze said. He is excited to see where the network goes in the future.
“I think we'll create the shows that we know how to make, but we should always be experimenting and trying to figure out what else we're doing and what else we want to do,” he said. “I feel like a lot of our shows are an extension of what we already do in terms of immersive docs. But I'm also excited for us as a company to start growing and creating and learning new formats. I think this is just the beginning.”
You can preview the shows on the network at Viceland.com.