As Viceland
On November 5, 2015, Rogers announced that it would serve as the Canadian partner for Viceland, a new millennial-focused channel programmed by Vice Media, and that The Biography Channel would be rebranded to Viceland.[3][4] Vice Media had partnered with A&E Networks (who owns 10% of the company) to launch Viceland in the U.S. as a replacement for H2.[5][6][7]
Rogers and Vice Media had already begun to collaborate in October 2014, when Vice announced a CDN$100 million joint venture with Rogers to build a studio in Toronto's Liberty Village neighbourhood for producing original content.[4] Rogers also announced an intent to launch Vice-branded television and digital properties in Canada in 2015. Rogers CEO Guy Laurence described the proposed studio as "a powerhouse for Canadian digital content focused on 18- to 34-year-olds" which would be "exciting" and "provocative".[8][9] In 2015, Rogers-owned television network City introduced Vice on City—an anthology series featuring short-form content produced by Vice's Canadian reporters.[10] Vice Media was originally established in Montreal, but had moved to New York City due to difficulties in reaching a sufficient scale in Canada at the time. The company believed that Rogers' investment in Vice helped to better achieve these goals.[3]
Pre-launch programming for Viceland began at 5:00 a.m. ET on February 29, 2016 with Bar Talk, an hour-long special featuring Vice Canada's head of content Patrick McGuire, followed by a countdown to the official launch later in the day.[11][12][13]
In November 2017, The Globe and Mail reported that Rogers intended to cease providing funding to Viceland in early 2018, citing inside reports of low viewership and unprofitability. Representatives of both companies to declined to comment.[14] On January 22, 2018, Rogers and Vice jointly announced a termination of their partnership. The channel shut down on March 31, 2018, and its licence was revoked by request of Vice Network Canada on April 1. Immediately after that, the channel space that was created by The Biography Channel in 2001 simply ceased to exist. Vice will inherit complete ownership of the Toronto studio.[15][16] Several small providers replaced it with FX, giving it wider distribution.
On August 16, 2018, Vice announced a long-term output deal with Bell Media. Viceland was not relaunched, but the new deal saw its content dispersed across some Bell-owned services such as MTV, Much, and Crave.[17][18]
