TRAVEL CHANNEL LIBERTY TV JOINS PREMIERE WORLD

Belgian travel channel Liberty TV will join Germany’s digital pay-TV platform Premiere World on July 1. However, according to information obtained by Interspace, it will at first only be available to satellite homes as local German media authorities have still to approve cable distribution.

Liberty TV, which is operated by the media group Maastricht Multimedia, was launched in December 1998 and is at present available free-to-air in the French language on Astra and Hot Bird 3, as well as on cable networks in France and French-speaking Belgium. With its inclusion on Premiere World, it will also be available in a German-language version, test transmissions of which can already be found on Astra transponder 112.

In a separate development, the Hamburg-based media authority HAM has approved programming changes on Premiere World from July 1. These will see the main channel Premiere multiplexed on two time-shifted channels Premiere 2 and Premiere 3, Romantic Movies and Star Kino combined into Premiere Star and Cine Comedy and Comedy merged into Premiere Comedy. Classica, the stand-alone classical music channel, will meanwhile be integrated into the Premiere Family package and offered at no additional cost. Premiere World is a new basic package into which the current Gala World and Family World packages will be integrated.

Also on July 1 all subscribers will gain access to the Pay-TV services Cinedim, Superdom and Blue Movie. Although unconfirmed, Interspace believes that teh cost of the basic package Premiere Family which offers family and general entertainment and documentaries on 12 channels willbe reduced to DM19.99 (E10.22] a month. Fees for other packages are also likely to be lowered, anthough only when taken out for a period of two years.