Broadcast Text International acquires
Chello Zone's Studio Business
London, 4th January 2012: Broadcast Text International (BTI), Europe’s leading versioning company, has acquired Chello Zone’s operational studio business in Eastern Europe, and secured a long term versioning agreement with the international broadcaster.
Chello Zone Studios has operations throughout Eastern Europe, including first class dubbing studios in Poland and Romania. Together with partner studios, they produced in excess of 30,000 hours of subtitling, lecturing, voice-over and dubbing last year. The facilities currently provide dubbing and subtitling in over 20 languages for Chello Zone's channels, including Extreme Sports Channel and Zone Reality, as well as for external clients.
The parties have also signed a long term versioning agreement, which will see the majority of all localisation needs within Chello Zone's channel portfolio provided by BTI.
"As leaders in their field, Broadcast Text International are well placed to take over our studio business and continue building it", says Rhiannon Harries, Chello Zone’s Chief of Operations.
"We are extremely happy to finalise this deal and are delighted to serve as the localisation partner for Chello Zone in the coming years", says Björn Lifvergren, CEO of Broadcast Text International. "The fit between our organisations is perfect and together we will make a very strong offering", Lifvergren continues; "Along with our new colleagues at Chello Zone Studios, we are looking forward to serving Chello Zone and their external clients with the best possible service in many years to come."
Acquired by Swedish Private Equity, Valedo in 2008, Broadcast Text is Europe's leading versioning company, with offices in London, Brussels, Amsterdam, Budapest, Maastricht, Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen and Helsinki. The Broadcast Text Group is one of the world's biggest suppliers of localisation services such as dubbing and subtitling for television, video, cinema and DVD.
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CONTACTS:
Broadcast Text International
Björn Lifvergren
+46 70 631 28 22
bjorn.lifvergren@broadcasttext.com
Chello Zone
Claire Drinkwater
Head of Marketing & Communications
+44 207 644 7170
Claire.Drinkwater@chellozone.com
ABOUT CHELLO ZONE
Chello Zone is a leading international broadcaster and distributor of thematic television channels across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. With drama, factual, sports, movies, children’s and lifestyle television, its channels offer something for everyone.
The company owns a portfolio of five consolidated channel brands: Zone Reality, Zone Romantica, Horror Channel, Extreme Sports Channel and preschool channel JimJam. Chello Zone also operates a number of joint venture and managed channel services in the EMEA region, including Outdoor Channel; Food Network and Fine Living Network for Scripps Networks Interactive; and a portfolio of six UK entertainment channels as a joint venture with CBS Studios International.
The consolidated and joint venture channels reach audiences in more than 160 million homes across over 100 countries and in 25 languages.
Chello Zone is a business unit of Chellomedia, a leading international media company, and the European content division of Liberty Global, Inc. For more information, visit www.chellozone.com.