Ovation TV Acquires International Music Feed
Universal Music Group Channel Available to 8M Homes, Mostly via Dish Network
By B&C Staff -- Broadcasting & Cable, 1/7/2008 9:01:00 PM
Ovation TV acquired Universal Music Group's International Music Feed, a cable channel available to more than 8 million subscribers, mainly through EchoStar Communications' Dish Network satellite-TV service.
IMF will be discontinued at the end of the first quarter on the few other cable outlets that carry it.
Ovation, which relaunched last year, will take over the channel on Dish where IMF was as of Wednesday, raising Ovation's carriage to more than 25 million homes from 5 million about a year ago.
Ovation was acquired by Hubbard Media Group in August 2006, with other investors including Arcadia Investment Partners, Corporate Partners II, The Weinstein Co. and Perry Capital.
IMF is a 24-hour music network that covers a wide swath of genres, and Ovation hopes to use some of its programming on its schedule. It was started in 2005 by Vivendi Universal, which will get an equity position in Ovation as a part of the deal. No financials were disclosed.
