F.Y.I. IS BACK! MURPHY BROWN RETURNS TO TELEVISION ON ENCORE CLASSIC --IN DECEMBER! FROM THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER The premium TV group wants to super-serve African-Americans with new channel Encore Black, Hispanics, horror fans and baby boomers with Encore Classic and shows like Murphy Brown. Premium TV company Starz is shuffling the lineup of its eight Encore channels and adding new programming to super-serve key demographic groups that over-index in the premium space, including African-Americans, Hispanics and baby boomers. Encore, which launched in April 1991 and which the company likes to point out is the most widely subscribed U.S. premium pay TV service with a near-record 35 million subscribers as of Sept. 30. Encore Love will become Encore Classic with a focus on boomers. The repositioned channel promises a mix of evergreen movies and classic TV series, such as Murphy Brown, Magnum, P.I. and Night Court. Classic movies will air at 9 p.m. every day. The film lineup will include Kramer vs. Kramer, American Graffiti, Independence Day, Stand By Me, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Good Will Hunting, Tootsie, Basic Instinct and The Notebook. The network said the new Classic network fits Encores Playing Favorites tagline particularly well. “The new and improved Encore family of channels and services are aligned to super-serve its many constituent demographic groups,” said David Baldwin, executive vp of program planning for Starz. Baldwin also told THR that to get some of the popular 1980s shows added to Encore, the firm struck deals with the likes of Sony, Universal and Warner Bros. The shows were available or became available as the company was looking for content, he said. And we were very happy to get Murphy Brown, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary in December this year as Encore Classic launches. We like Magnum PI and those shows because they just take our audiences back to a different time in their lives. Encore households spend an average 17.3 hours per month watching Encore channels, according to Starz. The Encore viewer base is more mature than that of Starz, because of its programming focus and somewhat lower price. Starz is led by CEO Chris Albrecht. As of Sept. 30, 2013, the company had 57 million overall subscriptions. In the third quarter, Starz subscriptions increased by about 1 percent, for the first time hitting the 22 million subscriber milestone, while subscriptions for the Encore services stood at 35 million. The Dec. 2 rollout of the new brands and offers will be supported by new channel logos, graphics and audio packages. With Encore not having as big a marketing budget as Starzs original series, which has been a key focus for management, much marketing of the changes at Encore will be done with distri
Posted on: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 17:28:33 +0000
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