Viasat World to Roll Out Epic Drama Brand Across CEE

Viasat World is launching a new content brand, Epic Drama, in key territories across Central and Eastern Europe.

Epic Drama will be dedicated to celebrating the greatest current drama series from around the globe. The brand will join Viasat World’s current channel and SVOD portfolio, which includes 27 pay-TV channels in 50-plus markets, as well as nonlinear offerings in many of its territories. Launching on December 14, Epic Drama will feature more than 600 hours of big-budget, HD content across a diverse mix of dramatic genres.

The new Epic Drama service will initially be available in Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey and Ukraine via a pan-regional feed. Further rollouts are planned for 2018.

Irina Gofman, the CEO and president of Viasat World, commented, “We are delighted to introduce Epic Drama, a bold and lavish new channel entirely dedicated to big-scale and expensive drama productions with compelling storytelling at its heart. Our unique status as an independent broadcaster allows us to listen to our affiliate partners and our viewers, understand what they are looking for and respond quickly. We are using our pedigree in drama to address a gap in the market for a 24/7 channel which curates the best in today’s drama from around the world, with the content also available on demand.”

Gofman added, “Viasat World is one of the biggest independent content aggregators in Europe, and we are always looking to make the very best content available to audiences via our comprehensive channel and SVOD portfolio. Our strategy is to build an extensive collection through acquisitions, early prebuys and more recently co-productions—enabling us to secure the pipeline of relevant, high-quality programming for all our channel brands in the future. We are already working with some of the best content providers and distributors around the world. We are poised to continue those discussions as we look to expand our content library and complete our debut programming slate whilst building on our lineup for next year. We couldn’t be more excited to introduce the world to ‘the new home of Epic Drama’—the go-to destination for audiences seeking the must-see drama series of the moment.”