Viacom, Endemol launch women’s channel

Viacom International Media Networks (VIMN) and global production group Endemol are teaming up to launch an entertainment channel targeting the female market.

Viacom Blink! will debut initially in Poland later this summer on pay-TV platforms Multimedia Polska and N, offering more than a million Polish households a schedule filled with Endemol programmes.

Overseen by VIMN’s MD and exec VP of emerging markets Bhavaneet Singh, the channel will carry shows skewed towards 16- to 49-year-old women from Endemol’s library of 2,300 formats and 24,000 hours of content.

Under the deal, VIMN will have access to more than 4,000 hours of Endemol’s content for television and digital media platforms. The deal guarantees 800 hours of hours in the first year and 650 hours in the subsequent years.

Programmes such as Hot in Cleveland, Make Me a Supermodel, Forensic Investigators, Supersize vs. Superskinny, Fear Factor and The Little Couple have already been confirmed to air on the network. VIMN is also in discussion with various US studios to showcase a selection of feature films on the net.

At a press briefing in London on Thursday, VIMN president and CEO Bob Bakish said that “spade work” was already being done to take the channel into other markets in 2012, with Central and Eastern Europe being targeted.

Bakish said: “We are going to lead in Poland; we’re going to launch it this summer and the idea is to use that as a test case and subsequently bring it to other markets.

“We are interested in growing in the adult space. With Nickelodeon, we are the leader around the world in kids programming, and with MTV we are the leader around the world in youth.”

Chairman and CEO of Endemol Ynon Kreiz added: “We have a very large library of 24,000 hours of high-quality product that we have invested heavily in. All of that is now available for distribution around the world. We found 4,000 hours specifically available for the Polish market and we will sell between 650 and 800 hours per year.

“This is the first time we have done a deal on that scale. We see it as the first of many. Success in Poland will pave the road for other countries on the back of that template,” added Kreiz.