“Shane Smith and the Final Collapse of Vice News” – Lachlan Cartwright (Hollywood Reporter)

“Vice’s bankruptcy filings paint a fascinating narrative of a company cratering under wide-scale industry disruption. It’s a business without a consumer revenue stream that depends too heavily on advertising and partnership deals. Vice “relied on external funding, raising both debt and equity capital to fuel its rapid growth and to fund expenses in certain parts of the business,” wrote Frank A. Pometti, a consultant hired as the chief restructuring officer of Vice Media, in a May 2023 declaration filing. “Although these fund-raising efforts helped to finance Vice’s growth, they ultimately led to the company being burdened by a highly leveraged and unusually complex capital structure.”

With the Feb. 22 disclosure that Vice is getting out of the news business, all that remains is Vice TV, a joint venture of A&E and Vice, the ad agency Virtue and Vice Studios. The question is whether Fortress has a vision other than reducing overall spend as it tries to bring in revenue from a number of stand-alone businesses”

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/vice-media-shane-smith-1235837714/