HBO axes another Vice program, ‘Vice News Tonight’

HBO has canceled its short-lived, 30-minute newscast “Vice News Tonight,” marking the end of the premium cable channel’s seven-year relationship with the millennial-focused digital content company, Vice Media.

“We’ve decided not to renew ‘Vice News Tonight’ after this season,” HBO said Monday in a statement to The Times. “We’ve had a terrific seven years partnering with Vice Media, first with the weekly newsmagazine series and most recently with the nightly news show.”

The evening show, which debuted in 2016, will end in September. Its most recent episodes have tackled topics including domestic and global politics, Israel’s most-hyped burger, the state of the National Rifle Assn., new abortion laws in the U.S. and digital models. It’s the same show that documented the white nationalist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 and received four News and Documentary Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award and several other accolades for its reporting.

The cancellation comes after HBO in February axed its Emmy-winning weekly documentary news series “Vice” — the program that famously chronicled NBA star Dennis Rodman’s visit to North Korea in 2013.

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“A daily Vice News show will continue and I’ll be able to share with you all the details in the coming weeks,” Vice Media CEO Nancy Dubuc said in an internal letter to the Vice Global Team, obtained by The Times. “As one of the most trusted places for news for people under the age of 35, the world needs VICE News more than ever and we’re dedicated to ensuring more people around the world have access.”

HBO on Monday thanked Vice’s news chief, Josh Tyrangiel, for “his tireless effort in creating a news show from the ground up, geared for a modern generation of viewers.”

Alas, Monday also brought news of Tyrangiel’s departure from Vice this summer after nearly four years of “harrowing challenges and huge highs” with the former startup company, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Ten percent of the Vice Media staff was laid off in February under the leadership of Dubuc, formerly of A+E Networks. Dubuc, who’s been in her role for just over a year, succeeded Vice’s freewheeling founder, Shane Smith, who became executive chairman of the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based outfit months after it was rocked by reports of systemic sexual harassment in the company and having a culture that is not hospitable to women.

Dubuc on Monday announced the hiring of Jesse Angelo, the New York Post’s former chairman and CEO, to oversee news, television and digital at Vice. Angelo steps into the newly created role “to create expanded platform opportunities and franchises for all our great talent and the content we are making every day,” Dubuc’s memo said.

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