Television
January 25, 2006
Warner Bros. International Television Distribution And Orbit Communications Extend Long-Standing Relationship With Multi-Year Pay Television Output Deal
(January 25, 2006 – Las Vegas, NV) – Warner Bros. International Television Distribution and Orbit Communications have signed a multi-year output deal giving Orbit the exclusive pay television rights for Middle East and North Africa, it was announced today at the NATPE convention in Las Vegas by Jeffrey R. Schlesinger, President, Warner Bros. International Television, and Samir M. Abdulhadi, President & CEO of Orbit Communications Company.
The deal, which was negotiated by Mickie Steinnman, Vice President, Sales, WBITD and Orbit’s Khulud Abu-Homos, Senior Vice President of Programming and Stephen Riome, Vice President of Programming, calls for the exclusive pay television rights to the Studio’s current feature films (such as “Batman Begins,” “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” as well as a number of upcoming titles), television series (including “Invasion,” “Close to Home” and “Supernatural”), television movies and mini-series (such as HBO’s “Rome”).
“We’ve enjoyed a long and mutually beneficial relationship with Orbit,” said Schlesinger. “We’re pleased that they’ll continue to bring our world-class programming to audiences throughout the Middle East and North Africa.”
“We at Orbit are extremely delighted to continue our strong relationship with Warner Bros. This new multi-year exclusive output deal will further strengthen this relationship and will continue to make available to our subscribers throughout the Middle East and North Africa Warner Bros.’ world class programming,” said Abdulhadi.
Warner Bros. International Television Distribution is one of the world’s largest distributors of feature films, television programs and animation to the international television marketplace (broadcast, pay cable, basic cable, satellite, pay-per-view, video-on-demand, digital platforms, etc.). It licenses some 50,000 hours of programming (including more than 6,000 features and 74 current series), dubbed or subtitled in more than 40 languages, to telecasters and cablecasters in more than 175 countries.
Orbit Communications Company is the world’s first fully digital, multi-channel, multi-lingual, pay television platform that broadcasts 39 television channels and 20 music radio stations to the Middle East and North Africa. Orbit’s premium packages of television and radio services offer an unrivalled variety of choices even for the most demanding television viewers and radio listeners. Orbit was created with a sole purpose in mind: to provide a vast selection of world-class entertainment and information in English, Arabic to an audience hungry for greater programme diversity.
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