A&E’s History Channel is expected shortly to confirm three new distribution agreements for the Asian and Far East region. Whitney Goit, executive vice president, A&E TV Networks, said the three markets will be Japan, South East Asia and India, and what Goit refers to as "greater" China. "We are not yet present in these three markets but by year-end we will be making announcements to start services in January or soon afterwards," he said.
History is currently concluding the partnership agreements, which include satellite and cable players. Goit said that in Japan the audience will be modest to start with, "measured as a few millions. In India and China the numbers will be much larger."
Goit said that History’s core content will come from its own archives, and that generally product will be dubbed into local languages with some interstitial material, and possibly local hosting inserted, to make the channel easily accessible. "We strive to put a product out there, so that the viewer sees us as an international channel with an obvious effort to relate closely to that local market."
The biggest coup is adding China to History’s coverage. "The Indian service is the easiest. The Anglo-American influence and point of view, and the sheer amount of English spoken by the middle-class makes them far less sensitive," said Goit, adding that he is confident History will do well there. "In China we are having to send every piece of material into the country in advance of being shown on air where it is checked. The mechanism is in place, but we are keen to create with the authorities a reputation for being ultra-sensitive and reliable to their needs. We want them to have programming that they are comfortable with, but it is a most difficult market. We will start with a block of programming so that they can see how serious we are."
Also high on History’s radar is distribution in Pakistan, Turkey and Israel.
