HBO has canceled Vice News Tonight, putting an end to its seven-year relationship with Vice Media. The architect of that show, news chief Josh Tyrangiel, will depart Vice this summer after nearly four years of, per a memo he sent to staff, “harrowing challenges and huge highs” with the company.
Amid the changes at Vice News, CEO Nancy Dubuc has tapped Jesse Angelo, the former chairman and CEO of the New York Post, for a newly created role overseeing news, television and digital at Vice.
HBO has been the exclusive television home for Vice News, a relationship that has at times proved fraught for both companies, especially when Vice under then-CEO Shane Smith expanded its TV footprint with the 2016 launch of cable channel Viceland. With the end of Vice News Tonight, Vice is expected to look to further grow its news brand with both domestic and international partners.
Vice News Tonight will end in September when Vice’s deal with HBO is up, but Vice is shopping a daily news show to other networks and platforms and is expected to announce a home for the show in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, the company is at work on a news-centric show for Hulu that has yet to be announced.
Vice built its bona fides in news with the help of HBO, which in 2013 struck a deal with the new media startup for a weekly newsmagazine series, Vice. The show made headlines in its first season when it sent Dennis Rodman to North Korea. Vice went on to win two Emmys, and it eventually led to an expanded relationship between the two companies that included multiple documentary specials and the 2016 launch of daily news show Vice News Tonight.
HBO had already decided not to renew weekly show Vice, and a daily news show began to make less sense for the network as it doubled down on drama and comedy series under its new leadership.
“We’ve had a terrific seven years partnering with Vice Media, first with the weekly news magazine series and most recently with the nightly news show,” Nina Rosenstein, executive vp programming at HBO, said in a statement. “We want to particularly thank Josh Tyrangiel for his tireless effort in creating a news show from the ground up, geared for a modern generation of viewers. We are very proud of what Josh and his team accomplished.”
