VICE’s Shane Smith Talks Media “Revolution” in MacTaggart Lecture

EDINBURGH: In his keynote MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, VICE Founder and CEO Shane Smith issued a warning to media companies that they must adapt to the needs and tastes of a new generation.

Smith said that there are profound changes currently facing the media industry, one that he said is all too often paralyzed by trepidation and confusion. “There is a revolution going on in media. And it’s scary, and it’s fast, and it’s going to be ugly. But it’s also totally necessary to keep going forward…. Change has never been more important, never so crucial—especially in our industry.”

“In the long term, it means: a changing playing field, a mild to medium dose of chaos, and a fast-moving, ever-shifting, highly volatile marketplace, in which only the most nimble and dynamic companies will survive.”

He challenged legacy media to adapt in order to reach the powerful youth audience and deliver content that’s relevant for and resonates with them. “Baby boomers have had a stranglehold on media and advertising for a generation. That stranglehold is finally being broken by a highly educated, ethnically diverse, global-thinking, hard-to-reach generation, and media is having a hard time adapting to this rapid change.”

Smith said that if media companies don’t change, they run the risk of alienating a generation that has become quite influential and will continue to exert even more power in the future. “Now, we all know that a lot of media is derivative…. We just make what has been successful before. The reason why all this chaos in media is happening is because the new audience, the new purchasing power realizes that vapid and vacuous shit isn’t going to get us to where we need to go.”

He added, “So let’s break some rules. And here’s a good place to start. Open shit up. Media today is like a private club, so closed that most young people feel disenfranchised. You have to hand it over to the kids.”

Smith argued that creating content that matters to today’s youth, and addressing the issues and passions of young people, is not only good for humankind, but also for business and for the future of the industry.