Press Release

Entertainment Studios to Launch Six HD Networks

SIGNS VERIZON FiOS TV FOR UPCOMING LAUNCH IN A MULTI-YEAR DEAL UNPRECEDENTED DEAL PROVIDES INDIVIDUALLY BRANDED SUITE OF 24/7 HD NETWORKS INCLUDING AUTOMOTIVE, PETS, COMEDY, TRAVEL, FOOD AND ENTERTAINMENT

Entertainment Studios ( http://www.es.tv), the largest independent producer and distributor of first-run syndicated television programming for broadcast television stations, announced today that the company will launch six targeted high-definition (HD) networks, and has signed Verizon's FiOS TV for the initial launch.

The six HD networks, currently planned to launch on FiOS TV later this year, are: CARS.TV, PETS.TV, COMEDY.TV, MYDESTINATION.TV, ES.TV and RECIPE.TV. The networks are global in scope and will provide multi-platform content, ultimately giving viewers the ability to watch the content on television, online, and on mobile phones.

The six channels, which Entertainment Studios plans to make available on the same day, are:
-- Cars.TV -- This adrenaline-pumping network showcases the collectors, designers, innovators, and the ultimate car enthusiasts! ( http://www.Cars.tv)
-- Pets.TV -- A television network dedicated to pet lovers everywhere. PETS.TV celebrates the pets we love and the people who love them. Pet News, Pet Care, Pet Health and Pet Lifestyles! ( http://www.Pets.tv)
-- Comedy.TV -- A television network dedicated to today's funniest comedians, featuring a mix of live concert performances, talk and variety shows, sitcoms and movies. ( http://www.Comedy.tv)
-- MyDestination.TV -- A television network dedicated to the best in travel featuring fun, exciting, exotic must-see destinations around the world. ( http://www.MyDestination.tv)
-- ES.TV -- A television network dedicated to entertainment news, variety shows, celebrity profiles and today's hottest superstars. ( http://www.es.tv)
-- Recipe.TV -- A television network dedicated to famous chefs, amazing recipes, wonderful food and delicious cuisine from around the world. ( http://www.Recipe.tv)

"Our goal and commitment is to make our networks the very best in their categories, and our upcoming launch on the Verizon FiOS TV platform gives us a great start," said Byron Allen, Founder and CEO of Entertainment Studios. "All content will be originally produced in-house to insure the highest level of creative quality, as well as the ability to distribute our content globally on all platforms."

"Verizon is committed to leading the industry in the scope and quality of our programming with a major focus on HD content," said Terry Denson, vice president -- FiOS TV content and programming. "The future addition of these six high-def networks, coupled with our advanced fiber-optic technology, will help to further enhance our FiOS TV offering and will certainly appeal to many of our customers."
These six HD channels will join Verizon's extensive FiOS TV channel lineup, which offers more than 400 all-digital channels including an increasing number of high-definition channels and more than 11,000 video-on-demand titles each month, 70 percent of which are free. FiOS TV is currently available to over 7 million homes in 14 states: California, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Oregon, Texas, Virginia and Washington. Verizon, the nation's fastest-growing television service provider, delivers FiOS TV service over the nation's most advanced fiber-optic network straight to customers' homes and businesses.

About Entertainment Studios
Entertainment Studios, Inc. produces, distributes, and sells advertising for 15 television programs, making it the largest independent producer/distributor of first-run syndicated television programming for broadcast television stations. Entertainment Studios provides video content to broadcast television stations, mobile devices, multimedia platforms, and the World Wide Web. Our mission is to provide excellent programming to our viewers, online users, and Fortune 500 advertising partners. Our home entertainment division, Entertainment Studios Home Entertainment (ESHE), is becoming one of the premier independent suppliers of DVD, CD and umd(TM) products. With a library of over 4,000 hours of owned content and a growing array of licensed titles, ESHE markets and distributes a collection of films, television programs, concerts, fitness, and children's direct-to-video programming. Chairman and CEO Byron Allen founded the company in 1993. Headquartered in Los Angeles, it has offices in New York, Chicago, Atlanta and Raleigh.

Kind of a Voom 2.0 (or is it 3.0?). Fewer channels might be more attractive to cable (eventually).

Kind of a Voom 2.0 (or is it 3.0?).Well, 1.0 was a flop, 2.0 was a flop.....


The bottom line is content; will they have enough, and will it be worth watching?

New Suite Of HD Nets Will Premiere on Verizon’s FiOS

Cars.TV, Recipe.TV Among Six New HD Channels

By Linda Moss -- Multichannel News, 9/21/2008 10:00:00 PM

Six start-up HD networks—with original programming about cars, comedy, pets, travel, food and entertainment—will debut later this year with launches on Verizon’s FiOS video service, according to officials.

The new HD channels Cars.TV, Pets.TV, Comedy.TV, MyDestination.TV, ES.TV and Recipe.TV have been created by Entertainment Studios, which bills itself as the largest independent producer and distributor of first-run syndicated shows for TV stations.

“What is unique here is all of our content is originally produced by us and is in 1080i HD,” said Byron Allen, founder and CEO of Entertainment Studios.

Although Entertainment Studios plans to debut its channels on Verizon, the six HDTV networks will not be exclusive to that telco, according to Allen.

Entertainment Studios is “in advanced conversations” with other distributors, and Lindsay Gardner, former president of affiliate sales and marketing for Fox Cable Networks, has been consulting on the launch of the six-network HD suite, Allen said.

Verizon has said it will have 150 HD networks, “and they’ve allocated approximately 4% of that capacity, six channels, to us,” Allen said. He added that Verizon is paying license fees for the new HDTV services.

“They are paying us sub fees, and the sub fees are very substantial,” Allen said.

Cars.TV showcases auto collectors, designers and car enthusiasts. Pets.TV celebrates pets and their owners. Comedy.TV offers a mix of live performances, talk and variety shows. MyDestination.TV is dedicated to travel, while ES.TV will focus on entertainment news and celebrity profiles. And Recipe.TV is about famous chefs and food.

Distributors have to carry the whole suite of six services, they can’t cherry pick just a few of them. And content from the six HDTV networks will be available on their own individual Web sites and on mobile, according to Allen.

“Verizon is committed to leading the industry in the scope and quality of our programming with a major focus on HD content,” Terry Denson, vice president of FiOS TV content and programming, said in a prepared statement. “The future addition of these six high-def networks, coupled with our advanced fiber-optic technology, will help to further enhance our FiOS TV offering and will certainly appeal to many of our customers.”

Entertainment Studios produces, distributes and sells advertising for 15 programs, including Comics Unleashed, which will have 260 episodes its new season and will air on Comedy.TV. The company has a library of more than 4,000 hours of owned content and a growing array of licensed titles.

Allen hosts several of his company’s TV shows, such as Entertainers with Byron Allen and Kickin’ It with Byron Allen.

“Verizon saw us as a way of making a strong statement to the consumers that we are first in class in terms of having terrific HD content and HD networks,” Allen said. “They’re going to use us very well to acquire customers who are pet lovers and car lovers and want another food network and want another comedy channel and travel channel and want choices and options.”

Allen isn’t daunted by the fact that there are established networks in several of the genres he is tackling, namely Comedy Central, Food Network, Travel Channel and E! Entertainment Television.

“I think they’re all fabulous,” he said. “They all do a magnificent job. They’ve shown, no pun intended, that there’s a huge appetite (for content) and I don’t think any one network can fill that appetite.”

Allen pointed out that Comics Unleashed features unknown comedians that would not typically appear on Comedy Central.

“I think that says, hey, there’s room for more than one comedy channel,” he said.

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6597530.html

The bottom line is content; will they have enough, and will it be worth watching?

Based on their website? My answers are "No" and "Not a chance." My guess is Verizon is only carrying this because it's being offered free or virtually free, and with their upgrades to conclude in the coming month or two, they will have access to their "virtually limitless" bandwidth.

ES.TV runs overnight on many ABC affiliates around the Country nightly after Jimmy Kimmel. If I had to guess, it does maybe 2 show a month - and airs it daily, over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over....sam show...night after night and I'm not joking.

If you think the reruns on Voom were bad, based on their shows already on the air, this thing will make Voom look like they had access to the World's Largest HD Collection.

My guess is Verizon is only carrying this because it's being offered free or virtually free,

From my post above:

“They are paying us sub fees, and the sub fees are very substantial,” Allen said.

Ah. I read the initial post but only skimmed the rest.

Still, I'd read that as "...the sub fees are very substantial [for a bundle of channels with public-access quality programming, no market clout, and no carriage on any other provider or established subscriber/viewership base. Which is to say the fact that we're able to garner even $.005 per channel per sub is quite substantial.]"

I must ask myself the question of "WHY?" Don't we have enough food channels? Don't we have enough car channels? Don't we have enough pet channels? It is like NONE of these have never been done and like NONE of these are not currently on the air? This looks like an idea that is destined for the scrap heap. Consumer overload.

“They are paying us sub fees, and the sub fees are very substantial,” Allen said.
...
Distributors have to carry the whole suite of six services, they can’t cherry pick just a few of them. And content from the six HDTV networks will be available on their own individual Web sites and on mobile, according to Allen.
I hope the Verizon sub fees won't really be very much for these channels, but zero would be best. I have no interest in the monthly rate going up to pay for very specialized channels like these. Verizon might put them on the new HD extreme package or whatever they are calling it, so not everybody would have to pay for them, but what a waste of bandwidth. Recipe.tv - are they kidding?

By requiring distributors to carry all 6 HD channels, they are not going to get many cable companies, if any, to carry them. Why would a cable operator take up 6 precious HD channels of bandwidth for these new start-up channels? Of course, they will probably send these channels out at a reduced bit rate, so that 3 HD channels will fit into one 39 Mbps QAM channel to make them a little more palatable to the cable operators.

Looks like a waste of good bandwidth to me. How many more duplicative channels like these do we need? Does anyone know if VZ does marketing research with its customer base on what kinds of content we'd like to see added to FiOS? Has anyone here ever been surveyed about content choices by VZ?

I must ask myself the question of "WHY?" Don't we have enough food channels? Don't we have enough car channels? Don't we have enough pet channels? It is like NONE of these have never been done and like NONE of these are not currently on the air? This looks like an idea that is destined for the scrap heap. Consumer overload.

I have to agree. Who needs more than 3 channels anyway?:D

Great! Now we can watch Byron Allen interview Will Ferrell about Blades of Glory 24/7! And I wonder why these comedians aren't featured on Comedy Central?

This will make the Voom suite look like HBO by comparison.

Well, 1.0 was a flop, 2.0 was a flop.....


The bottom line is content; will they have enough, and will it be worth watching?

I *LIKED* the voom channel (speaking as customer of the late and unlamented DBS provider). the content was spread too thin, but there were some stuff I rather enjoyed.

Sounds a lot like:

Animal Planet
Travel Channel
Rush
Comedy Central
Food Network
Ultra