Is Vice losing its grip? (published in C21 Perspective) 08-01-2018
Stephen Arnell
Broadcast/VoD Consultant for TV & Film, Writer/Producer (Bob Fosse, Alex Cox, Prince, Sinatra etc), Media/Culture Commentator (BBC Radio, magazines, newspapers) & author (novel The Great One published November 2022)
Hypocrisy?is the?homage?vice?pays?to?virtue.?
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Within the UK media world there’s been a definite feeling of?schadenfreude?over recent events at?Vice?Media, founder Shane Smith’s aggressively hip online and TV Millennial-skewed empire.
At least some of this stems from Canadian Smith’s rambling, off-kilter ego-driven speech at the Edinburgh International TV Festival in August 2016, when he lambasted UK broadcasters for their lack of vision for younger audiences and generally created enough ill-will to last several lifetimes.
At the Festival, Kevin Lygo, ITV’s Director of Television commented to applause that, in describing Smith, he was “trying not to use the word odious”.
To some, Shane Smith’s hubristic antics at Edinburgh foreshadowed the problems?Vice?are experiencing.
The recent New York Times reports of sexual harassment in the US offices of?Vice?Media and the enforced leave of senior executives and departure of others were preceded by a tone-deaf video ‘State of the Union’ speech to employees in November 2017 by Smith, which singularly failed to address the situation - just as stories about the culture at the company were first surfacing post Weinstein.
Vice’s quaintly phrased ‘non-traditional’ employment contract was seen by many female employees as giving a green light to some of the ‘Boy’s Club’ behaviour that characterised the organisation,
The ageing hipsters at?Vice?(Smith is 48 years old) seemed to be living a fantasy more suited to the era of?Mad Men?(or worse) than the equality culture that they?supposedly?represented.
There's a real sense that chickens are now coming home to roost.?
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In the UK,?Vice?employees have banded together to protest the unhealthy atmosphere at the company, stating in an open letter to Medium that:
“It is difficult to see how the company can demonstrate that when it is still being run by people who oversaw habitual sexual harassment and tried to buy the silence of those that tried to speak out.
For example, Andrew Creighton is still the President of?Vice?despite the revelation of a large payoff to a former employee who claimed she was fired after rejecting an intimate relationship with him.”
One wonders how long?Vice?investors Disney (10%) and 21st Century Fox (5%) will tolerate being associated with the increasingly toxic brand, especially if it threatens to tarnish their own standing.
Certainly, Disney’s investment in?Vice?always appeared somewhat incongruous, especially when Viceland TV’s offering includes shows such as?Balls Deep,?F**k, That’s Delicious?and?Bong Appétit.
In the UK, the linear TV channel Viceland launched with some fanfare back in September 2016, but ratings have been negligible, with imported fare such as the animated series?Archer?and the comedy?It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia?tending to perform better than specially commissioned shows such as?Gaycation, and?Weediquette.
Smith is probably hoping that, barring further revelations, the story will burn itself out.
But he might be in for a rude awakening, as back in 2003 Smith and co-founder (since departed) Gavin MacInnes gave hostages to fortune in interviews for?The?Vice?Guide to Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll, which may now gain further publicity.
Orgies, drug-taking and other sordid activities were described in graphic detail, although the excuse given by the distinctly unprepossessing pair that they ‘were willing to sleep with media buyers to keep the magazine alive’?doesn’t quite ring true to many...