|
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
< BACK TO Fresh Intelligence MSM Flirts with Insurgent Vice TV
Vbs.tv, the Web-based video venture from hipster magazine and lifestyle conglomerate Vice, only launched last week, but it is already getting attention from youth-hungry mainstream media outlets. The online network, helmed by Adaptation director Spike Jonze, aims to "exploit every utopian vision the Internet has thus far failed to live up to." Such diverse outlets as the Discovery Channel, MTV, and, strangest of all, straight-laced CBS news program 60 Minutes have sniffed around Vice's gonzo travel idea. "The Discovery Channel offered up a travel series, but we didn't end up taking it because they wouldn't give us Internet rights," says Vice co-founder Shane Smith. "MTV is interested in having us compile stuff for a 'best of' for them. And a producer from 60 Minutes called because they were looking into following up on our Bulgaria story" (in which a Vice correspondent talks with a dirty-bomb dealer who had once taken a meeting with Osama bin Laden). While the MTV connection makes sense (Jones has been a producer and writer on the network's Jackass show), it's surprising that both the Discovery Channel and 60 Minutes have reached out to Vice, given its propensity for photographing and featuring nude or somehow damaged people—often covered in their own vomit. "These guys are all just desperate to tap into the youth demographic," explains Smith. "They're all fucked." A rep from 60 Minutes had no comment. 
Do some research, Radar: They got their funding for the magazine the same way--told a reporter a tech zillionare was interested in giving them money, and he did. They're all fucked, indeed. Posted by: splenetic on March 12, 2007 4:45 PM Didn't they get their funding from welfare servics in Montreal? Posted by: DonaldRumsfeld on March 12, 2007 5:13 PM That was for the original tabloid in Montreal. The glossy NYC version came later. It's here In the same year, Vice began courting major publishers such as Larry Flynt Publications, owner of Hustler and Rap Pages, and News Corporation, which owns the underground hip-hop label Rawkus Records, to back an expansion and redesign. There was little interest. But when the Montreal Gazette phoned, Smith told the reporter there was a bidding war between those two companies and Behaviour Publications, the company responsible for buying and revamping Shift magazine. It was a lie. When Behaviour owner Richard Szalwinski read the article, he called the boys into his office. The guys stumbled their way through some explanations and, when they were done, Szalwinski asked them to come back Monday with a valuation of their company. Posted by: splenetic on March 12, 2007 5:18 PM Advertisement |
    
 |
|
 |
|
 | ||||
Back
Larry Birkhead Pops Up On Entourage