New Nets Grit and Escape Buy Rights to NBCU Films

By Jon Lafayette
( Broadcasting & Cable )
published

New digital broadcast networks Grit and Escape have licensed the rights to 157 movies from NBCUniversal Television & New Media Distribution.

The networks, owned by Katz Broadcasting, are set to launch in August. Grit is aimed at male viewers, while Escape targets female viewers. The movie titles were selected for their appeal to one gender or another.

This is the second programming deal for the networks, which made a similar deal with Warner Bros. earlier this month.

Titles that will air on Grit include Clint Eastwood, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone action films.

Escape films include Nicole Kidman in The Interpreter; Angelina Jolie in The Bone Collector and Swimming Pool with Charlotte Rampling.

The networks have made distribution agreements to be carried in 45% of the country so far.

Katz Broadcasting was started by Jonathan Katz, the former Turner Broadcasting executive who helped launched Bounce TV and continues as COO at the African-American digicast network.

Jon Lafayette
Jon Lafayette

Jon has been business editor of Broadcasting+Cable since 2010. He focuses on revenue-generating activities, including advertising and distribution, as well as executive intrigue and merger and acquisition activity. Just about any story is fair game, if a dollar sign can make its way into the article. Before B+C, Jon covered the industry for TVWeek, Cable World, Electronic Media, Advertising Age and The New York Post. A native New Yorker, Jon is hiding in plain sight in the suburbs of Chicago.