VICE Media Partners With Times Group To Foray Indian Market

An American-Canadian digital media and broadcasting company VICE Media has signed a partnership with the country’s largest media conglomerate The Times Group to launch in India.

Under the partnership, VICE will open a new bureau and production hub in Mumbai. The hub will be responsible for creating original content which will be distributed across television, mobile, digital and linear platforms in the region that will air local news and lifestyle programmes. Besides, VICE will be hiring journalists, filmmakers and open local production studios. It will also launch its media television channel VICELAND as a paid TV network.

VICE was launched in 1994 as a ‘punk zine’ and has since expanded into a leading global youth media company with bureaus in over 30 countries. It operates the original online video destination, an international network of digital channels, a television production studio, a magazine, a record label, an in-house creative services agency and a book-publishing division.

VICE’s CEO and founder Shane Smith said, “I couldn’t be more excited to partner with Times of India, not only to bring VICE’s content to the largest millennial population on earth, but also to create domestic content from India’s rich cultural fabric and bring it to our networks in the rest of the world. India is perhaps the most fascinating and dynamic country in the world today and this joint venture allows us unique access to this fast growing media market.”

Besides India, VICE announced a joint venture in the Middle East, alongside broadcasting arrangements in Africa, Southeast Asia, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Times Group finalised the deal via Times Global Partners, an entity which helps with the launch and expansion of emerging global digital companies in India. Prior to this, Times Global Partners had partnered with Uber, Airbnb, Coursera and Investopedia.

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