Prior to its North American launch, Vice ran newspaper ads for Viceland, containing only the network's name and a phone number that, when called, invited viewers to contribute answers to questions. Pre-launch programming for Viceland began on February 29, 2016, at 5:00 a.m. ET in Canada (with
Bar Talk, a one-hour special hosted by Vice Canada's head of content Patrick McGuire), and on the same day at 6:00 a.m. ET in the United States, broadcasting a countdown clock to the official launch later in the evening, accompanied by footage of Vice executives answering the viewer-contributed calls as
voice mail. The first program following the countdown was the series premiere of
Noisey, following hip-hop musician
Kendrick Lamar. In June 2016, Shane Smith announced at the
Cannes Lions Festival that Vice Media had reached deals with local broadcasters to expand into 44 countries with the launch of editorial properties and localized Viceland networks. These include the
Special Broadcasting Service (Australia),
Econet Media (sub-Saharan Africa),
The Times Group (India),
Moby Media Group (Middle East),
Multi Channels Asia (Southeast Asia),
Sky Network Television (New Zealand),
V Media Group (Canada, French-language),
Canal+ (France),
Ziggo (Netherlands) and
Telenet (Belgium).
Black Market— a series in which Michael K. Williams explores underground economies around the world, the U.S. premieres of
Cyberwar and
Dead Set on Life,
Party Legends— a show about re-enactments of entertaining party stories,
WOMAN— a series in which Gloria Steinam features the lives of different women around the world, and
VICE Does America— which
Abdullah Saeed and two Vice co-workers explore forgotten places of the world. The program ran through June 2018, when it was cancelled after the duo signed with
Showtime to host a
rebooted version (which premiered in early-2019). In 2019, Viceland began to pivot its U.S. operations to include a larger focus on news programming: on February 29, the network launched
Vice Live—a two-hour "
variety show" aired Monday–Thursday nights from Vice's Brooklyn headquarters, which featured coverage of the day's trends, reports from Vice's international bureaus, guest appearances, as well as other freeform content. The show was cancelled on April 15. That month, Viceland also premiered
Dark Side of the Ring, a documentary series on controversial events in
professional wrestling. After HBO ended its partnership with Vice News,
Vice News Tonight was subsequently picked up by Viceland. In February 2020, in the lead-up to the program's re-launch, the U.S. network was quietly renamed
Vice TV.
Australia On November 15, 2016, Australian public broadcaster
Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) re-launched its SBS2 channel as
SBS Viceland. The re-branded channel initially featured Viceland's programming and other newly commissioned content, alongside original news, entertainment, and sports programming carried over from its previous branding. In recent years, the channel has featured less programming from Vice.
Former Canada A
Canadian version launched concurrently with the U.S. version as a relaunch of
The Biography Channel, with
Rogers Media as a managing partner. To comply with
Canadian content regulations, it also produced some of its own programming (sourced primarily from a Toronto studio it co-founded with Rogers); Vice co-founder
Suroosh Alvi stated the programs were being produced Viceland would view its Canadian productions as being of global interest, as opposed to a
regulatory obligation of little interest of non-Canadians; one-third of the network's first slate of original programming are Canadian productions from the new facility. On January 22, 2018, Rogers and Vice jointly announced a termination of their partnership, with the Viceland channel discontinued on March 31, 2018. Vice inherited complete ownership of the Toronto production studio and the original content produced for the channel as the Vice website will stream Viceland's programming in Canada. Plans for a French-language channel were also dropped; V Media Group will feature Vice content in French on its channels. On August 16, 2018, Vice announced a new long-term output deal with
Bell Media, with its programming being aired by Bell platforms such as
Crave and
Much.
United Kingdom and Ireland On March 9, 2016, Vice Media announced that it would launch Viceland in the United Kingdom in September 2016 as part of a partnership with
Sky, marking its first international launch. This includes carriage on its satellite and over-the-top
Now TV services, access to Vice apps on
Sky Q set-top boxes, and timed exclusivity for video-on-demand/
Sky Go access. Sky will handle advertising sales for the channel which is available in Ireland. Low ratings were reported of the British and Irish version, where some programs premiered to viewership so low that they failed to register ratings. A Sky representative defended the channel, noting the steady growth and accolades of the U.S. network. On July 17, 2017, Viceland launched a block of
late night anime in partnership with
Anime Limited. Viceland changed its name to
Vice on TV in 2018. As of July 21, 2018, Vice on TV is now available on Virgin Media channel 219. A temporary duplicate launched on channel 191 on Virgin Media at midnight on July 22, 2018, a slot previously vacated by
W HD prior to the
UKTV channels' removals, until the network was restored on August 11, 2018. The channel was removed from Virgin Media on July 20, 2020. The channel closed on May 1, 2021.
Netherlands and Belgium Viceland started broadcasting in the
Netherlands and Flanders on March 1, 2017, initially exclusively to the cable-operator
Ziggo, owned by
VodafoneZiggo. Viceland had concluded a deal with
Liberty Global, 50% owner of VodafoneZiggo. On June 15, 2017, Viceland started with the local cable operator
Caiway. Only on July 18, 2018, Viceland managed to obtain distribution with
KPN, a national provider and competitor to Ziggo, resulting in nationwide availability. At the same time distribution started with
T-Mobile Thuis, another national operator. Viceland Nederland produces a few Dutch productions and was in the beginning of its existence in the news for having a documentary with Geert Wilders. In Belgium, Viceland Vlaanderen started with Telenet, the Flemish cableprovider majority owned by Liberty Global on March 1, 2017. Viceland Belgique, a French-speaking Belgian version of Viceland started on June 1, 2017, together with the launch of the Dutch version on the national IPTV provider Proximus. In October 2017 also VOO (operator for French speaking Belgium) and provider Orange started distributing Viceland giving Viceland national distribution in Belgium. In the Netherlands and Flanders, the television channel was renamed to Vice TV on November 1, 2019. Vice TV ceased existing in the Netherlands and Flanders on August 24, 2020.
Southeast Asia A Viceland programming block was aired on
Outdoor Channel in Malaysia from August 2016. == References ==