Movies Are the Big Casino in Central Europe

Michael Hedges April 10, 2006

The MGM Channel will be rolled out this year in local languages for cable and direct-to-home satellite viewers in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, CEO Harry Sloan announced at MIP TV. On offer will be the extensive MGM library that includes the James Bond, Pink Panther and Rocky films. Liberty Global’s cellomedia division is MGM’s partner in the venture that will extend the MGM Channel brand to Romania and Slovenia in 2007.

“We have a 4,000 film library but that library needs to be fresh, it needs to have films that are released in 2006, 2007, 2008 that continue its dynamism,” he was quoted by Reuters. MGM plans to release 15 to 20 independently produced films each year to “freshen” the library, which also includes 10,000 TV shows.

Sloan is certainly more excited about the distribution side of the business than production. "There is a big void, a very scary hole -- quality, full-service major distribution. We'll be filling it," he said, quoted by Variety. He also noted that other major studios recently left the distribution business, making that hole a bit less scary, competitively speaking.

Thinking of competition, the MGM Channel’s launch in central Europe – with a solid brand and largely American content – will certainly torment Europe’s free-to-air television broadcasters, independent producers and DG Info Society Commissioner Vivaine Reding. Viewers are migrating quickly from free-to-air to pay TV, particularly as household incomes rise in Central and Eastern Europe. Harry Sloan has been watching the trends from the big table, as CEO of SBS Broadcasting, which he recently sold before joining MGM.

Mrs Reding has long had her eyes on the financially suffering European film and television output. While Harry Sloan made his announcement last week in Cannes, she was in Prague telling film and television producers to roll the financial dice with the proposed EC rules allowing, and seemingly promoting, product placement. European producers, she said, “need the money.”

Subsidies from DG Info’s Media program, over €1 billion, have been extended to 2013 in hopes of extending European producers’ market share to 20% from the current 10%.

Meanwhile, the big-budget remake of James Bond classic Casino Royale is taking place at Prague’s Barrandov Studios. Picture MGM's Harry Sloan, Liberty Global's John Malone and Sony's Howard Stringer in a background scene, at the same table...having a great time.

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