NEW YORK – Discovery Channel Canada and Media International Corporation (MICO), the distribution arm of Japanese public broadcaster NHK, have signed a three-year program license agreement for a first look and exclusive access to high-definition programming for Canadian broadcast. The deal was announced Monday in New York City at the World Congress of Science and Factual Producers.
The agreement calls for Discovery Channel to acquire 20 hours or more of programming from the MICO catalogue in the first year; and 25 hours or more in each of years two and three. The first titles acquired under the new deal include Monster of the Sea and The Mysterious Black Rabbits.
MICO is the world’s largest distributor of HD programming and the world wide distributor of NHK content. In 2006 Discovery Channel Canada entered into a strategic partnership with NHK that included the exclusive same-day NHK and Discovery HD special broadcast of HD satellite pictures of the moon on November 14 and the NHK-Discovery Channel Canada co-production earlier this fall of HD productions Race to Mars and Mars Rising.
This new Discovery Channel Canada-MICO agreement strengthens the relationship between the two parties and makes available MICO’s HD catalogue to Discovery Channel’s high-definition TV channel, Discovery HD.
“Building on our successful co-production and content sharing agreement with NHK, this new licensing deal with MICO ensures that our viewers will enjoy even more of their world in stunning high definition in the years to come,” said Paul Lewis, president and general manager of Discovery Channel Canada . “New projects are in development with NHK and under discussion this week at the World Congress of Science and Factual Producers.”
