Lionsgate Lands DVD Distribution Rights to E!, Style Shows
Indie Studio Secures First-Look Deal With ComcastFor Home Entertainment
By Linda Moss -- Multichannel News, 7/1/2008 5:18:00 AM MT
The indie movie studio Lionsgate has struck a first-look deal with Comcast for the home-entertainment distribution rights to hit series from E! Entertainment Television, The Style Network and G4, officials said Tuesday.
The first program to be released under Lionsgate’s new agreement with Comcast Entertainment Group’s E!'s network is the tanning-salon reality series Sunset Tan Aug. 5. Additional releases will include E!'s popular series Keeping Up with the Kardashians and Snoop Dogg's Father Hood, as well as Style's Kimora: Life In The Fab Lane, which takes viewers inside the world of model, mogul, mom Kimora Lee Simmons.
Lionsgate has a focus in the TV-on-DVD category. The studio's release of the first and second seasons of Weeds both finished the year in the Top 40 among all TV on DVD releases. The current year is primed with the June 3 release of the third season of Showtime's marijuana-selling-mom series, along with the release of the first season of the Golden Globe- and Peabody-award-winning AMC series Mad Men and Tyler Perry's House of Payne Volume 2 today, July 1. Other titles in the Lionsgate TV on DVD catalog include Will & Grace, The Dead Zone, and Moonlighting.
Lionsgate has partnered with Sony and Comcast in the operation of the highly successful FearNet on demand and Internet horror channel; and recently announced the fall 2009 launch of a new premium entertainment channel with partners Viacom, Paramount Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
