News

Munich, 7 October 2008. The TV rights distributor Beta Film is expanding its activity in the field of TV documentaries and special-interest channels and has founded a joint venture with former Discovery Germany CEO Patrick Hoerl. The goal of the new firm AUTENTIC is to bundle the acquisition and sales of documentaries and to cultivate co-productions with German and foreign partners. AUTENTIC's portfolio will comprise major projects suited for prime time as well as special documentaries and individual programs for smaller target groups, which are increasingly in demand from the growing VOD market. AUTENTIC will also create concepts for program slots and special-interest channels with a variety of thematic focal points for the global market. The marketing concept is aimed at traditional television broadcasters as well as SVOD platforms (Subscription Video on Demand), which allow their viewers to call up high-quality documentaries on pay TV independently of the time of broadcast and without extra cost. 
AUTENTIC general manager Hoerl: "I cannot imagine a better partner for this enterprise than Jan Mojto's Beta Film. Considering the many new ways there are to reach viewers, it is more important than ever to have an exceptionally competent distributor. Beta Film stands for top-quality contents for a broad public as well as for very limited target groups. This fits exactly with what we want to do."
"His profound experience with documentaries and special-interest channels, not least through his position as head of Discovery, makes Patrick Hoerl our ideal partner for this project," says Beta CEO Jan Mojto. "The sale of complete special-interest channels to network carriers and communication firms around the world is an interesting model with great potential for a large, internationally active firm such as Beta Film." 
AUTENTIC is being launched at MIPCOM 2008 in Cannes and will present its first catalogue in spring 2009. Talks about new special-interest channels with pay-TV platforms are already underway.