Ben Dietz Talks to PSFK

Founded in Montreal in 1994, VICE is an independent media brand based in New York with 16 offices and distribution in 19 countries worldwide. Best known for its free glossy magazine, VICE has incredibly expanded in the last four years into the music business, film, DVD, book publishing and an ad-supported online broadcast network, VBS.TV! PSFK wanted to know more so we went to talk to Ben. Ben Dietz has been Director of Business Development for the VICE brands since 2004. He started his career at Sony Music in 1998 and prior to joining VICE he was Executive Producer at Heavy.com.

What have VICE been up to recently? Anything new?

Tons of new stuff, thanks for asking. Our first feature film Heavy Metal in Baghdad just premiered at Toronto International Film Fest, we start shooting our second feature in Croatia next week, we’re putting out a huge coffee table book of VICE photos that spans the last 13 years of the mag, and we’re in talks to expand the magazine into South America early next year. But the thing that’s most exciting right now is VBS.TV, our online video network.

VBS seems to be at the forefront of a lot of change in publishing. What’s changing in people’s media consumption habits and what’s driving this?

It’s a lot to do with convenience, seriality, ease of use – but the thing that we hear most is that people are coming to VBS because they can’t see the kind of stories we do anywhere else. VBS’s whole philosophy is about experiencing what our subjects do, to the extent we can. If there’s a subject we’re interested in, we want to be able to talk about it first hand. Stories like Sewers of Bogota and Heavy Metal in Baghdad are good examples, but even our lighter, more lifestyle-based stuff works that way. Epicly Later’d is Patrick O’Dell hanging out with skateboarders he thinks are important and just getting what he gets – there isn’t much of an agenda. And people are really responding to that – being able to draw their own conclusions.

There’s the bigger implication too – because production mechanisms are so much more accessible to indiviuals now, the whole media space is democratizing – just like desktop publishing democratized print media and fostered brands like VICE. But unlike the average guy with a camera, we could create an international platform for VBS much like we did for VICE, since our vision is global. Relationships with progressive brands have supported that growth and it’s just taken off from there. Right now we’re reaching over 2.5 million viewers every month. It’s really exciting.

What publications, publishers, media outlets, etc, that you think are especially noteworthy in terms of innovation and creativity?

There are lots of people doing interesting stuff but our favorites aren’t anything too weird or secret – the BBC, YouTube, Facebook, NPR. The Economist is a staple and there’s a great magazine called ANP Quarterly that a surf brand called RVCA underwrites, it’s edited by Aaron Rose, Ed Templeton and Brendan Fowler. But the most noteworthy thing for us is what’s NOT out there on any kind of large scale – which is news and intelligent conversation that doesn’t come with an inherent agenda, or with some stupid celebrity angle. There is a lot of really really crazy stuff that nobody’s covering – and a lot of really fun stuff that’s not soundbite-ready, so those stories get ignored.

Thanks, Ben!

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