👉 Background: Vice Media is an American-Canadian digital media and broadcasting company aimed at a young, millennial audience. They’re known for their edgy style of journalism, and publishing on some pretty controversial topics:

• The World's Most Dangerous Drug
• Cannibal Warlords
• Teenage Exorcists

👉 What happened: When they were at their peak in 2017, Vice was valued at $5.7 billion USD and received investment from the likes of Disney and Rupert Murdoch. But sadly, Vice is looking to file for bankruptcy after struggling to grow its revenue over the past few years.

👉 What else: The world of online media has changed and a revenue model built on ad revenue isn’t serving Vice anymore.

What's the key learning?

💡Building a mass following on social media is one thing, but turning it into sustainable business is another. Vice’s main revenue source is advertising - just like traditional newspapers. And it worked great for them… for a while.

💡In the early days of the social media, Vice leveraged the growing platforms like Facebook, YouTube and Instagram to get ahead of traditional media outlets. But then, some tough changes came along:

• Meta’s algorithm stopped prioritising news on Facebook.
• In a tighter economy, advertising budgets have been shrinking.

💡Digital ad revenue might just be becoming an outdated revenue model for media outlets. And they’ll need to evolve and innovate to stay competitive, or sadly fizzle out.