HBO’s ‘Vice News Tonight’ debut pushed back to Oct. 10
HBO’s upcoming “Vice News Tonight” is aimed at the generation of TV viewers who see the evening news as something their grandmothers watch before “Wheel of Fortune” comes on.
But making the nightly program from the renegade journalists at Vice Media a true alternative to the format that has been a fixture of the broadcast networks for more than 60 years has been an uphill climb.
That’s one reason HBO is delaying the launch of the program to Oct. 10 after previously announcing a Sept. 26 debut. The program is still perfecting a technical aspect that will allow viewers to access additional graphics or data related to a story when they watch “Vice News Tonight” on a digital device with a touch screen.
“We want to test it end to end to make sure it’s perfect,” said Josh Tyrangiel, Vice’s executive vice president for content, who offered up a first look at the program Tuesday at the company’s headquarters in Brooklyn. N.Y.
The nightly program is a bold experiment for Vice and HBO. Millennial viewers have grown up without the habit of watching the evening news at 6:30 p.m. But they have made Vice Media a go-to destination for news on the Web, and Walt Disney Co. and 21st Century Fox have taken significant stakes in the company.
The hope is that a regular TV platform will expose Vice to a wider audience and convert its dedicated young followers to regular HBO viewers. The half-hour-long “Vice News Tonight” will air weeknights at 7:30 p.m. ET and PT on HBO and will then be available on demand through a cable provider or the online viewing apps HBO Now and HBO Go.
The addition of a daily Vice program is expected to draw more subscribers to HBO Now, the over-the-top version of the premium cable channel that is streamed on the Internet.
Unlike nightly newscasts on ABC, CBS or NBC, where anchors sit at a desk, introduce video reports and conduct interviews, the narrative voice of “Vice News Tonight” will be unseen and unidentified (and presumably never make the kind of contract demands of a network TV news anchor).
Every young correspondent appearing in the “Vice News Tonight” clips shared Tuesday wore a T-shirt and jeans. But the news is treated respectfully, often delivered with the kind of earnest solemnity expected in an NPR or PBS report.
Tyrangiel said “Vice News Tonight” will chase big stories and pursue newsmaker interviews. But the program’s content will also not always be dictated by the day’s events, which Tyrangiel believes his Web-engaged audience already knows by 7:30 p.m.
Andrew Heyward, a researcher at the MIT Media Lab and former president of CBS News, praised the ambitions of “Vice News Tonight,” but believes appealing to both Vice fans and the kind of viewers who sit down at the end of the day for the news won’t be easy.
“I’ll be fascinated to see if they can create an appointment program for people who like Vice,” Heyward said. ”It’s a more daunting challenge than people might realize.”
Twitter: @SteveBattaglio
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