VOD provider adds Spanish-language films
DIGITAL: VeneMovies deal adds award winners to Avail-TVN services
By Jennifer Netherby -- Video Business, 9/22/2009
SEPT. 22 | DIGITAL: Video-on-demand provider Avail-TVN has signed a long-term VOD service deal with Spanish-language channel VeneMovies to make the station’s films available to TV audiences free on demand.
The deal is the latest from Avail-TVN in the Spanish-language VOD market. Avail-TVN already offers Spanish-language VOD from UFC, WWE, Music Choice music videos and other English-language content companies.
Spanish-language programming is one of the fastest growing segments of the VOD business, said Matt Cohen, Avail-TVN senior VP of content services.
“It’s a growing area in entertainment content overall, growing faster than the overall market,” he said.
In announcing the deal, Avail-TVN chief revenue officer Jim Riley called the move an “important step” in building the company’s Spanish-language content to reach U.S. Latinos who spent an estimated $19.7 million in 2008.
Through its deal with VeneMovies, Avail-TVN will distribute critically acclaimed films from Spanish-speaking countries on cable VOD throughout North America and Puerto Rico.
The initial lineup includes La Ley de Herodes, an Ariel Award winner about a janitor who turns into a corrupt mayor in a small Mexican town in 1949; Soñar no cuesta nada, a black comedy about Columbian soldiers finding lost treasure; and Iluminados por el fuego, a story of two vets of the the Falkland Islands War, which was awarded the Founders Award for best narrative feature at the Tribeca Film Festival.
