Vice Media Cancels Flagship Show, Announces Layoffs

Facts

• Vice Media Group (VMG) announced on Thursday that its popular TV program "Vice News Tonight" will be taken off the air as part of a broader restructuring that will result in layoffs across the digital media firm's global news business.¹
• VMG co-CEOs Bruce Dixon and Hozefa Lokhandwala justified the decision by citing "the current market conditions and business realities facing VMG and the broader news and media industry," but they didn't specify how many would lose their jobs.²
• The company will also be undergoing a larger restructuring that will see a refocus on its digital video business, its news documentary, and series production businesses and move VMG's content to platforms with wider audiences, such as YouTube, TikTok, Twitch, and streaming platforms like Netflix and HBO Max.³
• The layoffs will reportedly most seriously affect the audio team.⁴
• The cuts come as media outlets face a serious funding crisis. Last week, BuzzFeed announced it was closing its news division, and FiveThirtyEight said on Tuesday that it would exit ABC News amid job cuts at its parent company Disney.⁵
• Layoffs have also been affecting companies outside of the media field, such as Disney, Gap, Lyft, Whole Foods, Meta, Best Buy, McDonald's, and Walmart.⁶

Sources: ¹Reuters, ²New York Post, ³TheWrap, ⁴Democracy Now, ⁵Al Jazeera, and ⁶Forbes.

Narratives

• Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by Deadline. These layoffs are a symptom of both recent and more long-term downward trends in the economy as well as the media industry. It's becoming more and more difficult for media outlets to operate as information becomes more decentralized and easier to access. Layoffs are an awful thing, but they are the only way Vice, as well as many others, can stay afloat.
• Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by Intelligencer. Though Vice and the media at large may paint the company's layoffs as a product of the economy, in reality, it has everything to do with Vice's incompetent and greedy leadership. Shane Smith, one of Vice's founders, is essentially a conman who managed to convince investors that the media company was the future of news and entertainment. As it turns out, Smith was lying as he made money hand over fist while employees were treated like garbage. Vice's downfall was inevitable.