Media unleashed its first linear network on Monday night, launching Viceland, its new channel with A+E Networks. Featuring an eclectic lineup curated by Viceland creative director Spike Jonze, the network is taking a new approach to lure millennials back to TV. "We're trying to make this organism that's alive. … You turn it on, and it comes into your house like water," Jonze told reporters in January.
Viceland is shaking things up on the advertising side as well, reducing ad loads with an emphasis on native advertising, which Vice creates to look more like editorial content.
While other companies are trying to adapt to the changing TV landscape on the fly—Turner recently announced plans to trim ad loads for truTV and new TNT dramas—Viceland is trying to build a better mousetrap from the ground up. As it replaced the former H2 network, "we realized we had an opportunity because we were starting from scratch as a network to shake up the ad approach in a couple of ways," said Guy Slattery, general manager for Viceland.