HBO, Bill Maher Team With Vice for Newsmagazine

HBO is heading into some irreverent territory with a newsmagazine project with Vice.

The project, titled Vice, will be hosted by the company’s founder Shane Smith, who will executive produce the series with current HBO talker Bill Maher and Vice’s chief creative officer Eddy Moretti. CNN’s Fareed Zakaria will be a consultant for the weekly show.

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“Vice has emerged as a premier new-media brand through a savvy combination of irreverence, smarts and fearlessness,” HBO programming president Michael Lombardo said. “We are excited to offer a forum for their groundbreaking style of news coverage and look forward to a show that’s like nothing else on TV.”

The series will spotlight the Vice brand’s unique and youthful angles on domestic and international news.

The cable show is just the latest move in the company’s bid to expand its multiplatform reach beyond its print magazine, which has included vice.com, an international network of digital channels, a television production studio, a record label, an in-house creative services agency and a book publishing division.

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