"MOSCOW -- The Film Europe Channel, which is dedicated to screening only European films, launched late Thursday to subscribers in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Film Europe Media Company founder and CEO Ivan Hronec said it will eventually go continent-wide.
The channel will show annually up to 500 European films in their original version with subtitles 24 hours a day, seven days a week without advertisements. It will broadcast in SD via satellite, with an HD option using fiber-optic cable.
"We will offer viewers film productions not only from the traditionally strong countries like the U.K., France, Italy, Poland and Russia, but also from smaller countries, such as Portugal, Denmark, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Austria and even Liechtenstein, the latter being the co-producer of 'Paris je t'aime,' which we aired symbolically yesterday as the very first film on our programming schedule."
The channel is being launched by a company that, since it was founded six years ago, has opened 10 TV channels across Europe.
Film Europe Media Company, which is privately owned, has been built without government subsidies from individual countries or the European Union, Hronec said.
"We want to show that the project has a strong commercial foundation and only then will we take on partners. This is the path that culture today must take -- responsible projects that have a healthy financial approach, while at the same time bringing cultural and artistic value to audiences," Hronec added.
In Slovakia and the Czech Republic, project partners for the new channel are the satellite platform Skylink, M7 Group and Slovak Telecom, which will be an exclusive partner in the beginning for IPTV. Slovak Telecom will include the television channel as part of its satellite package.
At the same time, Slovak Telecom will include films from Film Europe in its VOD service, Magio".
Source: Variety 18th November 2011
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