Vice Video Earns $110 Million in 2011

We recently came across this article, which describes how Vice went from a free Canadian magazine to a multi-national online media powerhouse (with a little help from online video). 

While the magazine is still running and is "a really important part of what Vice is", it represents less than 5 per cent of the company's overall revenue. Last year the total revenue was more than $110 million and Vice is "on track in 2012 to generate significantly more", Dan'l Hewitt, general manager of AdVice, a division of Vice Media, told Journalism.co.uk.

Vice also sees audiences changing their behaviours and willing to watch long-form content whether via YouTube on a laptop or on mobile.

 

"We are seeing our engagement time and play-through of our longer-form content increasing week-on-week," Hewitt said. "The play-through, dwell-time and engagement is really significant for 40-minute documentaries."

In terms of distribution platforms Vice is focussing on both YouTube and its own player, Hewitt said. "YouTube is amazing because of scale and global reach it gives us and the pure democratisation of content in that space", the Vice-owned and operated video players allow the media company to keep 100 per cent of the revenue.

 

Vice is also investing and launching new technologies, including a Vice player, a syndicated video player to allow third-party publishers who do not produce their own video content but are "looking for ways to engage their audiences further and to benefit from the new revenue stream that comes from video monetisation".

 

Mobile video traffic "is significant and growing" with Vice responding by re-launching its mobile site, which is optimised for iPad and HTML5 streaming and "puts video front and centre of that experience".