MIP NEWS: Sony- and Comcast-backed MGM Networks has used the Cannes market to announce deals that will see its movie channel roll further into Europe, India and the Far East.
With Chellomedia, a division of Liberty Global, MGM has forged a 50:50 joint-venture to distribute MGM Channel on cable and DTH systems throughout central and eastern Europe.
The alliance will see MGM Channel first launching in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary by Q4 of this year. Plans are also under way to roll out the service in Romania and Slovenia by spring 2007.
"The MGM name carries with it a legacy of top-quality movies," commented Shane O'Neill, president of Chellomedia and chief strategy officer of Liberty Global. The MGM Channel will be dubbed into the local languages of each of these markets.
Elsewhere, MGM Channel will roll out in India, the Philippines, Vietnam and Cambodia, after carriage deals with Zees Dish TV platform in India, Sky Cable in the Philippines, Ho Chi Minh City TV and Phnom Penh Municipal Cable.
The launch of the channel in India brings to an end a co-branded joint-venture network that MGM had with Zee TV in favour of a fully-owned, exclusively MGM-branded network.
Since launching in South Korea in 2002, MGM Channel has since launched in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Macau, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. A second MGM channel has started in South Korea, called MGM Plus.
Over the last five years, MGM has increased its channel interests from approximately 25 countries and territories in a handful of regions to over 110 across Europe, Latin American, Africa, Asia and the Pacific Rim, said Bruce Tuchman, exec VP of MGM Networks.
Ed Waller
5 Apr 2006
C21 Media 2006
