Hemisphere Teams with Lionsgate for Spanish Streamer

SANTA MONICA/NEW YORK/MIAMI: Hemisphere Media Group has come on board as a partner with Lionsgate for a new Spanish-language SVOD movie service targeting U.S. Hispanic audiences.

Hemisphere operates five U.S. Hispanic channels, two Latin American pay-TV networks and the leading broadcast network in Puerto Rico, WAPA. The company will now take a minority equity stake in the venture and plans to leverage its library of hundreds of popular Spanish-language titles.

The service plans to launch next year.

“The addition of Hemisphere and its deep library of titles significantly expands the content offerings of a platform that is positioned to become the leading Spanish-language premium movie service in the U.S.,” said Lionsgate’s CEO, Jon Feltheimer. “We’re pleased to welcome Alan Sokol, Jim McNamara and the Hemisphere team to a partnership that combines great content, rich experience serving the Latino movie-going audience and a dynamic market opportunity.”

“We’re excited to be partnering with Lionsgate to help launch the definitive streaming service for the millions of Spanish-language movie lovers in the U.S., who traditionally over-index on media consumption,” added Hemisphere’s CEO, Alan Sokol. “The service brings together many of the top names in Hispanic media and will offer an unparalleled collection of world-class movies and a compelling way for Spanish-speaking and bilingual consumers to access it.”