Vice Media hires former NBC marketing exec as CEO – Business News
Adam Stotsky, a longtime NBCUniversal govt, has taken the helm at Vice Media and plans to steer a turnaround targeted on the embattled media conglomerate’s studio and promoting divisions, in keeping with a report on Monday.
Under his lead, the counterculture media group will give attention to its authentic documentaries, dramas and podcasts – like its widespread British crime drama “Gangs of London” or movie “Bama Rush” concerning the sorority recruitment course of on the University of Alabama.
The focus is on “storytelling that can build a long-term, profitable and sustainable media brand in today’s landscape,” Stotsky instructed the Wall Street Journal.
Adam Stotsky on the YouTube Streamy Awards in 2022. Getty Images
Bruce Dixon, who served as chief govt at Vice since February 2023, will go away the company.
He executed layoffs and targeted on reducing prices during his time at Vice, which was acquired by Fortress Investment Group and Soros Fund Management after it filed for chapter in 2023.
Dixon final yr introduced plans to stop publishing content material on Vice.com and sell belongings like Refinery29, its media web site geared towards younger girls, and British fashion magazine i-D.
“A lot of the sort of messy stuff has been cleaned up,” Stotsky instructed the Journal.
Now Vice, which was based in 1994, is profitable and seeking to remodel its studio business into a main income stream, in keeping with Michael Lang, Vice’s govt chairman and president of Lang Media Group.
Stotsky has spent about three many years working in leisure tv, serving as chief marketing officer at NBCUniversal and later as president of Esquire Network after which E! Entertainment.
More not too long ago, he led Dick Clark Productions, which is now owned by Penske Media, and helped Religion of Sports, the sports activities media enterprise based by Tom Brady, Michael Strahan and Gotham Chopra, raise $50 million in an equity spherical.
Vice was acquired out of chapter by Fortress Investment Group and different lenders. Getty Images
That doesn’t imply Vice expects smooth-sailing from right here on out.
“It’s going to be really tough for us to compete against Instagram, TikTok and YouTube,” Lang instructed the Journal.
“So we’re going to create great content for digital platforms, but we’re not going to be in the digital platform business itself.”
The CEO shake-up follows the hiring of Amy Powell, a former Amazon and Paramount govt, to serve as president of Vice Studios.
Adam Stotsky on the Billboard Music Awards in 2022. Getty Images for MRC
The company additionally plans to increase its Virtue advert company’s presence in Europe and give attention to information podcasts, like “Shane Smith Has Questions,” hosted by Vice co-founder Shane Smith.
Vice has additionally pushed a number of new sports activities sequence, like “Calipari: Razor’s Edge,” a partnership with Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions about basketball coach John Calipari’s first season on the University of Arkansas.
It has a new sequence anticipated to launch this September known as “NFL Playback,” which provides contemporary commentary from celebrities and gamers, like Manning, to basic video games.
