Old man who tends to run the joint, Rupert Murdoch, has just tried his hand at being way cooler than he never was, with 21st Century Fox buying a 5% stake in worldwide alternative news and youth conglomerate, Vice Media worth $70 million.
Being a mere eighteen years late to the Vice party, which started in 1994 in Montreal, Murdoch tweeted last year, asking who had heard of Vice (answer: everybody), and lovingly demeaned an entire generation by essentially describing young folk as ill-informed idiots who won’t access news without drugs, nudity or shock value thrown in:
Who’s heard of VICE media? Wild, interesting effort to interest millenials who don’t read or watch established media. Global success.
— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) October 13, 2012
Valuing Fox’s recently acquired 5% stake at $70 million also brings the news that Vice is worth a staggering $1.4 billion. Not bad for a free teen zine that was originally intended to promote community service. Not bad at all.
According to Deadline, Vice plans to exploit use the funds and partnership with Fox to expand overseas. Vice founder and CEO Shane Smith expressed the sentiment of IsThis Real Life, by saying, “We get to make all the content we want? With the best platforms in the world? Grow our brand exponentially? Become the next global media brand? And all the while own the vast majority of the company and vote 95% of the board? Where-do-we-fucking-sign?!”
Too bad years of The Simpsons blatantly burning Fox News (“Your voice of evil”) means that it’s hard to take the partnership seriously.
Via The Daily Swarm.
