Post by dkennedy on Feb 8, 2006 4:34:05 GMT -5
Dish Net Adds The Docu Channel to Lineup
February 7, 2006
By Anthony Crupi, Media Week Magazine
The Documentary Channel, a new 24-hour network trafficking in independent docs, launched this week on EchoStar’s DISH Network.
Based in Nashville, Tenn., the channel is nominally not an ad-supported venture––the docs run straight through, free of any commercial interruption––although a spokesperson for the DOC said that there are ad opportunities immediately before and after each film.
Docs have driven surprisingly big box office returns over the last few years, thanks to the success of films like March of the Penguins, Why We Fight and the Michael Moore polemic, Fahrenheit 9/11. The total U.S. box office for docs in 2004 totaled nearly $200 million.
While the DOC’s schedule includes films that were first commissioned by other networks (the 2004 Starz/Encore doc, Sam Peckinpah’s West: Legacy of a Hollywood Renegade) or were released several years ago (Waco: Rules of Engagement, from 1997), the channel aims to program films that have not been seen in the U.S. To that end, the DOC is soliciting feature-length and short docs from independent filmmakers via its Web site (documentarychannel.com).
EchoStar has slotted the new channel into its “America’s Top 60” lineup.
Thus far, the DOC has not won any cable carriage, although the channel encourages visitors to its Web site to ask their local carrier to pick up the network.
The DOC is the first network devoted exclusively to documentaries. The Sundance Channel had plans to launch a subsidiary net focused on docs, but that idea remains in suspended animation.
February 7, 2006
By Anthony Crupi, Media Week Magazine
The Documentary Channel, a new 24-hour network trafficking in independent docs, launched this week on EchoStar’s DISH Network.
Based in Nashville, Tenn., the channel is nominally not an ad-supported venture––the docs run straight through, free of any commercial interruption––although a spokesperson for the DOC said that there are ad opportunities immediately before and after each film.
Docs have driven surprisingly big box office returns over the last few years, thanks to the success of films like March of the Penguins, Why We Fight and the Michael Moore polemic, Fahrenheit 9/11. The total U.S. box office for docs in 2004 totaled nearly $200 million.
While the DOC’s schedule includes films that were first commissioned by other networks (the 2004 Starz/Encore doc, Sam Peckinpah’s West: Legacy of a Hollywood Renegade) or were released several years ago (Waco: Rules of Engagement, from 1997), the channel aims to program films that have not been seen in the U.S. To that end, the DOC is soliciting feature-length and short docs from independent filmmakers via its Web site (documentarychannel.com).
EchoStar has slotted the new channel into its “America’s Top 60” lineup.
Thus far, the DOC has not won any cable carriage, although the channel encourages visitors to its Web site to ask their local carrier to pick up the network.
The DOC is the first network devoted exclusively to documentaries. The Sundance Channel had plans to launch a subsidiary net focused on docs, but that idea remains in suspended animation.