Vice News Tonight celebrated its 1,000th episode this past March, and now the award-winning weekly news program is being canceled.
The cancellation, which will officially take place in May, comes as Vice Media Group begins layoffs within its Vice News unit.
In a memo to employees, the executive vice president of Vice News Subrata De said that the cuts “are a part of the wider ongoing restructure of Vice Media Group and the result of tough financial realities which continue to challenge the business in the midst of the sales process and changes to our funding model.”
The celebrated news program has won numerous awards, including multiple Peabodys and Emmys. In fact, Vice News Tonight has earned the most Emmy nominations of any nightly newscast since its launch. It’s in the midst of its seventh season and known for its exploration of stories that went beyond the headlines.
“For nearly seven years, VNT has been a lynchpin for us – a guiding light to so many, and an industry leader in awards and storytelling,” added De.
One of its celebrated stories was the critically-acclaimed Charlottesville: Race & Terror, from August 2017, where Vice News journalist Elle Reeve and her team followed a white supremacist protesting the removal of Confederate monuments in Charlottesville, Va.
Despite its heralded status, there were signs that all was not right for the news program.
Vice News Tonight debuted as a nightly newscast on HBO in October 2016 and was spearheaded by former Vice chief news executive Josh Tyrangiel. HBO declined to renew its deal with Vice News in 2019 and the newscast ended its run on HBO in September of that year. Vice News Tonight re-launched on Vice’s cable channel in March 2020. It switched to airing four days a week, then twice-weekly beginning in November 2021, and then became a weekly show at the start of this year.
Vice News Tonight’s final broadcast is scheduled for May 25.
The memo sent out by De also reflected additional changes Vice News is undergoing as its parent company Vice Media Group combats a media landscape that has been hard hit by harsh economic realities.
There will no longer be a dedicated audio team at Vice News, but De reiterated that audio and podcasts will still be part of Vice News.
The Vice World News short-form video unit is also being disbanded. A business restructure to Vice News is currently underway, with one of the moves resulting from this being the digital news verticals being folded into Vice’s publishing unit.
Vice is not providing an exact number of how many employees have been impacted by these moves, saying that it is “dozens.” However, De added in the memo that “Individuals who are directly impacted by these changes will be promptly notified through email and a subsequent discussion with a member of the HR team.”
She also said Vice News is still an important cog to Vice Media Group. She added, “Your work will continue to be showcased in long-form hours, feature documentaries, and on TV, digital, and streaming platforms. And through the brilliance of the teams who produce news content for VICE.com, TikTok, Twitch, and all socials, VICE News will keep pushing for accountability everywhere.