Exclusive: Vice Media to launch news FAST channel

Bea Hegedus

Vice Media is launching a new FAST channel dedicated to content from its Vice World News brand, TBI has learned.

The news channel will launch “very soon”, according to the group’s exec MD of distribution, Bea Hegedus, with the roll-out set for the US first.

It will offer programming that is “adjacent” to breaking news and will build on Vice’s heritage of factual content, which has grown consistently over the past five years.

Speaking during a FAST session at the Media & Entertainment Leaders Summit (MELS) in London today, Hegedus said that the new channel would offer shows that provide in-depth explorations of current affairs subjects.

Vice World News is the group’s international news network, which produces hundreds of hours of TV, digital and audio news programming for consumers globally.

Its output ranges from docs and docu-series to podcast, with a focus on extremism, climate, privacy, inequality and race, while partners have included A+E Networks, Showtime, Spotify and Hulu.

Hegedus added: “[Vice World News] is producing authentic deep dives into the news around the world – they are doing really amazingly well on TikTok and they are doing amazingly on Twitch, too.

“We have these teams making incredible documentaries about news events around the world, so the idea is to launch a [FAST] channel in the US, first, where you can watch all of this.”

Hegedus said the move had been driven by the surging interest in news content among FAST viewers, adding: “There are different genres doing well on FAST but the fastest growing after drama is news. We’re launching a news channel to capture that audience.”

The news comes just a few weeks after Vice Media Group announced that it had promoted Morgan Hertzan to president of global TV, while Cory Haik, who has served as the company’s chief digital officer since 2019, was also upped to chief operating officer for news and entertainment.

MELS, which is being produced by Informa’s TBI, DTVE and Omdia is taking place today with companies including TikTok, Roku, Banijay, Sky Studios and STARZPLAY taking part in discussions around the future of content creation and distribution.