Paramount, MGM, Lionsgate to launch new premium TV channel

NEW YORK -- Paramount Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. and Lionsgate today announced a joint venture to create a premium television channel that will draw on their extensive libraries and on new feature-film and TV production.

The as-yet-unnamed venture, scheduled to launch in September 2009, will take advantage of the fact that the studios all will be contractually free of obligations to other networks or premium-TV distributors, according to Philippe P. Dauman, chairman of Paramount's parent company, Viacom Inc.

The venture will have its own management team, headed by a chief executive who already has been selected but was not announced today.

Viacom's MTV Networks division, the cable-TV powerhouse, will handle marketing and affiliate services and will provide other operational support to the new channel.

The new venture will be a competitor to Time Warner Inc.'s premium cable channel, HBO, but also, more interestingly, to Showtime, which is owned by Viacom's sister company, CBS Inc. Viacom and CBS split two years ago, but both are controlled by their executive chairman, Sumner M. Redstone.

When CBS recently announced the launch of its CBS Films unit, a Paramount competitor, Redstone said that both of his companies should be free to pursue their own strategies, Dauman noted.

The new premium channel was announced by Dauman; Brad Grey, chairman and chief executive of Paramount; Harry E. Sloan, chairman and chief executive of MGM; and Jon Feltheimer, co-chairman and chief executive of Lionsgate. The four men began talking about a possible venture several weeks ago; the plan gelled quickly and was finalized in meetings last week at Viacom's New York headquarters, Dauman said.

The new venture will have access to Paramount and Paramount Vantage titles released theatrically on or after Jan. 1, 2008, and MGM, United Artists and Lionsgate titles released theatrically on or after Jan. 1, 2009. Among the new and soon-to-be-released films that will be available to the channel are "Iron Man," "Star Trek," "Pink Panther 2," "Cloverfield," "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "Shutter Island," "G.I. Joe," "Love Guru" and "Valkyrie." Also available will be planned new installments of "Robocop" and "Outer Limits."