You may never have heard of Shane Smith but there is a good chance that you will soon. Smith is the Canadian-born, New York City-based ball of energy behind what analysts call “the Vice phenomenon”, an all-guns-blazing media platform which he wants to make into the next CNN.

Next month Vice Media will launch its new channel, Viceland, in the UK as part of an expansion into 12 European markets. Vice is well known, especially among younger adults, but hitherto its main focus has been North America.

Smith, described by a US newspaper as a cross between a punk rocker and a Fortune 500 chief executive, built a 1990s alternative magazine from Montreal into a loud, brash and undeniably popular Web channel that seeks to challenge conventional journalism and capture “eyeballs” everywhere. It presents magazine-style text and full video coverage of current affairs in a tone that is dramatic, engaging and at times slathered in advertising.

Smith himself fronts a lot of its high-profile journalism, conducting interviews with characters such as the US dissident spy (and Glasgow University rector) Edward Snowden.

The style is brash and entertaining, but just how “different” Vice is from the mainstream is more open to question. The channel wears the mantle of an upstart, yet seems poised to go mainstream at any moment.

Those millennials who celebrated Vice as a free-thinking player find it is going straight. Its investors include Disney, 21st Century Fox and A&E Networks, a company 50 per cent owned by the US giant Hearst. James Murdoch, son of Rupert and head of News Corporation’s UK operations during the phone-hacking scandal, is on the Vice board.

Next week Smith will deliver the MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival. Last year’s lecturer, comedian and director Armando Iannucci, mounted a fiercely passionate defence of the BBC Royal Charter, then under government review. It is unlikely Smith will echo that stout defence of “establishment” broadcasting.

He has to persuade people that Vice can successfully disrupt an extremely crowded market. Its original appeal was its perceived “alternativism”, the verve of its presentation style and its free access on the Web. A few millennials baulk at the prospect of having to, gulp, pay their TV licence or take out a Sky subscription, if they are to watch Viceland favourites such as the food programme F***, That’s Delicious and travel series Gaycation.

Online, the Vice formula has seen great success. It attracts advertisers, although it has been accused of publishing too much “clickbait” to achieve some of that success. Its new media rivals have included Buzzfeed and the controversial gossip site Gawker, closed down yesterday by new owner Univision. But it is easier to innovate online; TV, more regulated and by its nature conservative, can be much more difficult.

Smith sees the move as a massive expansion that will boost company’s value way beyond its current estimated £2 billion. He is expected to take Vice to the financial markets soon. Meanwhile, Viceland is likely to be a rather noisy neighbour to the BBC and its fellow channels on Sky.