Viacom to Sell Products in Spain

Viacom Inc. is the latest Hollywood studio to sell a package of movie and television shows to an emerging satellite TV service in Spain being launched by Sogecable, which is backed by Spanish media giant Prism and France’s Canal Plus. The deal is worth more than $250 million over 10 years, according to television sources.

New digital technology has fueled an explosion in the television business, opening up a lucrative vein for Hollywood studios. Last year, Germany’s media giant Kirch Group committed more than $7 billion to major Hollywood studios for product needed to launch a new digital satellite service. Spain’s television market is about half the size of Germany’s.

“People in Spain have watched four channels most of their lives, and now they’ll have all these options,” said Jack Waterman, president of Paramount Worldwide Pay Television, a division of Viacom.

MGM and 2Oth Century Fox are the only studios yet to lock up a pay television deal in Spain, where Sogecable is waging a battle against a satellite service being launched by Spain’s Telefonica, Mexico’s Televisa and state broadcaster RTVE. The rival has not nabbed any major American studio rights.