Horror Channel Italy scales Twin Peaks

On the back of its successful revamp last September, Horror Channel Italy is now building on its current positioning with a significant boost to its daytime offering.

The channel’s focus on acquired horror-related movies and series will soon extend to cult TV series classics Twin Peaks, War of the Worlds and Highlander, following its latest deal with CBS Studios International. The series are due to premiere from June to bolster its daytime and access primetime schedule as lead-ins to its movie-fronted primetime line-up.

Kicking off in June is the digitally-remastered version of Twin Peaks, marking the 21st anniversary of the series’ originally launch in the country in 1991. Sci-fi horror series War of the Worlds follows in July, with fantasy adventure Highlander launching in September.

Movies provide the “heart and the thrust” of the channel in primetime and late-night, but as a 24-hour channel the challenge has been to find suitable series with a horror, supernatural or fantasy theme for its daytime zone, Adam Robinson, Chello Zone’s director of programming told C21.

“We want the channel to be accessible to all viewers, but at the same time have that leaning towards horror and the supernatural to build up a feel of the channel,” he said.

Horror Channel Italy’s refocus towards a more strongly defined horror proposition, and away from its previously more generic fantasy line-up, earned the Chello Zone-owned channel an initial 40% viewing increase, which it has maintained into the spring 2012 season.

The channel is available to around 4.5 million subscriber homes on the Sky Italia platform.