New York
-- Multichannel News, 6/19/2000
New York-A trio of U.S.-based programmers said last week that they nailed down deals to increase their presence in local markets.
ESPN launched a local channel for Israel on June 15, with carriage on the country's three MSOs and distribution in 1.6 million homes.
QVC Inc. said it formed a partnership to launch a Japanese service. The channel, QVC Japan, is set to debut next spring on cable and the SkyPerfecTV direct-to-home service. QVC will own 60 percent of the networks, with the remainder held by Mitsui & Co., a Japanese trading company that is already an investor in pay TV programming.
The joint venture will have local studios, a call center and customer-service and distribution facilities.
Separately, CNBC got down to business in Turkey last week, saying it will launch a business-news channel for the market in September in partnership with local pay TV programmer Kanal E.
The channel, to be known as CNBCE, will feature Turkish business and financial news and similar coverage of overseas markets.
