News - Looking Glass gives digital plans a Joost boost 03/06/2007
MIPCOM: Australia's Looking Glass International, here for the first time at Cannes, is stepping up its digital initiatives, with a channel launching on Joost next month.
Reaching screens mid-November, the channel on the new IPTV platform will carry a mix of 15 hours of Looking Glass programming, including PBS series Culinary Travels and Channel 4 show Louder Than Bombs.
The LGI TV channel will also carry Mongolian Eagle, a factual show from TVB in Hong Kong and Arte in France, and Lemonade Stories, a documentary that aired on TVB, Noga in Israel and the UK's Business Channel. Third Coast Films' American Revolt is also going to Joost.
This is a revenue-share move by Looking Glass, set up last year by former Off The Fence executive Nha-Uyen Chau, but the company is getting licence fees for the content it has on another IPTV platform, Babelgum, Chau told C21.
"We licensed a package of 17 hours to Babelgum, non-exclusively, including Lemonade Stories," she said. "There is a lot of potential in IPTV but you don't always get licence fees." She added, "we've also done a deal for the programme Moonbeams: Journey to Freedom with Animal Planet in Canada," she said. The show comes from Singapore's Oak3 Films, and has already sold to Animal Planet channel internationally.
For Mipcom, the distribution company is pushing new doc project Mad About English, about the boom in English-language learning in China, from Singapore's Journey Pictures. "We're looking for presales on that one here this week," said Chau.
Looking Glass is also handling documentary projects from the UK's Coffee Films, US prodco Rapture Films and Scottish company Autonomy, the latter developing a feature doc about a Kurdish PKK terrorist.