Shane Smith

Although the much-publicised ‘steak-gate’ incident led to the end of the Clarkson, Hammond and May era of the show, the end had been looming, Wilman suggested.

“We were collapsing under the weight of the work we were doing,” he added.

Appearing at the festival to promote the team’s new Amazon Prime show The Grand Tour, Wilman would not be drawn on how much the company had paid for the series. “It’s a good whack,” he conceded, but denied that it was as much as the rumoured £4 million per episode.

The youthfully cool Vice Media, famous for its guerrilla-style coverage of war zones and drug busts, has built its brand online. Yet it is about to launch a traditional TV channel in the UK and plans to make it available in 44 countries via different partnerships. 

It’s almost as if Apple had suddenly unveiled a record deck minus any kind of connectivity. Or is it? 

The rapid growth of the new TV channel makes Viceland the "fastest growing television network in history."

Speaking at a press conference at the Cannes Lions advertising festival, CEO Shane Smith said, "When I first announced Viceland was going to launch in 12 countries in 12 months everyone rolled their eyes.

"It turns out they were right, we were wrong. We didn't do 12 countries in 12 months; we did 44 countries in four months."

Already a success in its native Canada, Vice is preparing to launch a free-to-air linear channel in the UK - one of 12 across Europe that will be rolled out in the next two years.

Speaking to Broadcast magazine, the company's chief executive Shane Smith said: “It’s no secret that we’ve been wanting to expand our linear presence for quite some time”.  

The upstart news network is winning new respect