New Reality Net Eyes 2003 Launch
By Mike Reynolds -- Multichannel News, 9/22/2003 12:47:00 PM
There’s a new player on the U.S. reality-network scene.
Sporting such fare as Rescue 911 and America’s Most Wanted, Reality TV has inked a carriage contract with EchoStar Communications Corp. and is expected to make its stateside premiere before year’s end on the direct-broadcast satellite provider’s "America’s Top 150" package.
Chris Wronski, chairman and president of Zone Vision Enterprises, parent of Reality TV -- which has been airing internationally since December 1999 -- and three other international channels, told Multichannel News in an interview in New York Monday that the network hopes to make its Dish Network debut by Dec. 1.
"There are still some technical tests, but that’s when we’d like to launch," he said, noting that Reality TV’s pact runs for five years and calls for "limited free periods." The deal then calls for license fees, which Wronski would not specify. He hopes to announce a deal with a major cable operator by year-end.
Should Reality TV meet its launch date, it would presumably beat Reality Central to the punch.
That fledgling network -- led by former E! Entertainment Television cofounder Larry Namer and Blake Mycoskie, an outdoor-advertising executive who also competed on CBS’ TheAmazing Race in spring 2002 -- was hoping to launch next January, with programming gleaned from reality competition shows.
In making its coming-out announcement this past April, Reality Central said its game plan called for an amalgam of news and information shows, genre imports and enhanced encore editions of shows like Survivor and Fear Factor. Neither executive could be reached by press time.
Zone Vision -- which also reps a number of U.S. programmers abroad, including Discovery Communications Inc., Turner Broadcasting System Inc., MTV Networks, Hallmark Entertainment and Bloomberg Television -- plans to announce U.S.-based affiliate- and ad-sales teams, as well as a general manager for Reality TV, in the upcoming weeks.
The network -- which launched in Europe almost four years ago and currently counts 35 million subscribers in 125 territories, including the United Kingdom -- has 1,800 hours of reality library programming. Wronski said Reality TV would probably deploy about 600 of them coming out of the gate in the United States.
He added that executives are also beginning to negotiate with U.S. production companies to produce original shows, which would likely begin airing on the network next spring. Wronski said that down the road, original U.S.-based productions could account for up to 10% of Reality TV’s programming roster.
Given international library fare like RPA, a show chronicling activities in the biggest hospital in Australia, Wronski said about 50% of Reality TV’s programming would be fresh to the United States at launch.
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