Speculation that Disney is going to buy Vice has placed the forward-thinking media company under new scrutiny, especially its new cable channel, Viceland.
Disney — which is currently Vice's largest outside investor, and whose joint TV venture with Hearst, A+E Networks, houses Viceland — seeks to reach more young men. And Vice seems to be just the means it can use to get them.
But new ratings information provided by The Wall Street Journal earlier this week has painted a dreary picture of the state of Viceland. According to the newspaper, the cable channel averaged 45,000 adult viewers under the age of 50, the demographic most desired by advertisers, in July.
Business Insider obtained the comparable Nielsen ratings for H2, which was about 92,000 adults under 50. That represents 51% less viewers in the demo than H2, the channel Viceland replaced.
On the surface, this seems like a clear-cut failure for Vice's first major TV channel outing. But actually, there's more to the story.
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It's unfair to compare 6-month-old Viceland viewership to that of 5-year-old H2.
Question: Would you ever punish a six-month-old child for not being as tall as a five-year-old? Clearly, no. H2 had about five years to build its audience. It's illogical to believe that six-month-old Viceland could do the same.
Still, didn't Viceland inherit H2's viewers?
You may be thinking that Viceland actually had a head-start in the numbers with H2's audience. That would make sense if Viceland was aimed at the same viewers. Don't forget, H2's audience steered older and A+E Networks was aiming for a younger audience with Viceland. So in the process, Viceland would probably lose audience, while trying to attract younger viewers to the channel.
The plan seems to be working. According to Wall Street Journal's reported numbers, Viceland's viewership averages 17 years younger than H2's viewers. That's pretty significant.
Live TV viewing isn't exactly the Millennial style.
Finally, Viceland could be the first cable channel ever to consider cable as one of the platforms used to view its programming from its inception. As a channel geared toward younger viewers and in the age of cable cord-cutting, it hopes to appeal to delayed viewing via DVR and other online platforms. In that case, ratings aren't exactly its main measure of success, it's just one part of the equation.
A+E Networks requested that Nielsen abstain from measuring Viceland's ratings for its first six months. With just days to go, a more complete ratings picture will become available. But even then, how much does that really matter?
See the rest of the story at Business Insider