Viceland to launch in France with Canal+

Vice has partnered with Canal+ Group to launch a French version of its TV network Viceland via the CanalSat platform later this autumn.

The launch, which was announced by Vice’s chief creative officer Eddy Moretti at MIPTV this morning, marks a further rollout for the channel, which debuted in the US and Canada in February and is also due to go live on Sky in the UK and Ireland in September.

Vice said that the 24-hour French language version of the channel will programmed, developed and produced entirely in-house by Vice’s creative team. The channel will be exclusively available for CanalSat customers in their basic TV subscription packages – either live, on demand or on the go.

The launch will be the first foreign-langue version of Viceland to go live, with Moretti commenting that Vice liked France  having first launched as a print magazine from an office in  French-speaking Montreal, Canada.

“We’ve been growing our production in France for the past several years preparing for a day like this – the chance to enter the French market with a 24 hour lifestyle channel which prominently features domestic production,” said Moretti.

Speaking on stage at MIPTV, he stressed that despite the launch and expansion of its Viceland, Vice “is not turning into a TV company”.

“We’re just adding TV to a robust multi-channel platform-agnostic business and we’re bring advertisers along for this multi-channel experience and they’re loving it,” said Moretti.

He also revealled that Vice will soon make an announcement about making its first moves into feature films, and said Vice will launch four more brand channels covering the topics of travel, health, gaming and money. These channels are due to launch later this year.