TORONTO – Like many broadcasters, Hollywood Suite has done its research to find what it believes is a gap in television content. But it also polled the country’s television service providers before finalizing the concept around its four new channels.
“The BDUs said ‘don’t bother coming to us with just a linear channel’”, said president and co-founder David Kines in an interview with Cartt.ca. “So the key to our offering, and also recognizing what’s going on out there, is to deliver a multi-platform offering for both movie lovers and the BDU."
The Toronto-based independent broadcaster, which on Tuesday unveiled its slate of commercial-free high definition movie channels, is harnessing the strength of American studios Warner Bros. and MGM to market their services in advance of their November 14th launch. The four channels include Warner Films, The MGM Channel, action and adventure channel Hollywood Storm, and romance and relationship channel Hollywood Festival.
Despite the multitude of options for movie content now, Hollywood Suite chair and co-founder Jay Switzer maintains that Canada remains “under-movied” and “under-high deffed”.
“The demand for movies is still there, the growth in high def is still there, and the vertically-integrated majors have not yet rushed to convert all of their channels (to HD)”, he told Cartt.ca. “You really have to hunt and peck if you’re a viewer and a movie lover to find where the movies are. There’s a few on this channel, a few on that channel, but they’re surrounded by series, interrupted by commercials every six minutes, sometimes not in high def, sometimes not available on-demand, and most of them do not offer multi-platform rights.
“Also, we’re launching at a time when our BDU friends need help as they realize that they’ve got some real pressures from over-the-top services. We provide more tools for their tool box, and different BDUs are interested in different ways. Some because they’re just great linear channels, some because we’re pushing business and adding volume to their portals, some because we’ll help reduce churn, some because we’ll create better margins, some because we’ll help their HD box penetration, and some because of our smart phone and laptop rights. We’re the right product at the right time.”
Switzer declined to elaborate on any carriage agreements at this time other than to say that the company is in “very advanced, final discussions with major BDUs now”.
Switzer and Kines are no strangers to launching channels and knowing what viewers want. Both began at CHUM in the early ‘80s and rose through the ranks of the CHUM/City empire as it launched successful specialty channels such as MuchMusic. Switzer went on to become president and CEO of CHUM Ltd., while Kines eventually oversaw all of it’s music and youth programming before the company was sold to CTVglobemedia (now Bell Media) in 2007.
“I have never come across such an opportunity that has such promise, merit, and was very close to our core strengths”, Switzer enthused. “This is turf that is very familiar to us and that we feel very comfortable in, and I immediately knew that I wanted to be involved.”
