The Poker Channel Expands Into Eastern Europe
Europe's "largest dedicated gaming TV network" makes big move
London, UK, 29th January 2009 -- The Poker Channel, Europe's largest dedicated gaming TV network, announces its first significant move into Eastern Europe today through a distribution agreement with the Vectra Group, the second largest cable operator in Poland.
Launching a promotional campaign to all Vectra's digital basic subscribers on Friday 30th January, this is first carriage agreement for The Poker Channel in Eastern Europe, and marks the continued rise in popularity of the game in the region. With the new agreement, The Poker Channel is now available to 16,000,000 cable and satellite homes in 17 European markets.
The new agreement follows this month's announcement by Gaming Media Group, parent company to The Poker Channel, of its results for the year ended 31st October 2008. The Group doubled its TV advertising revenues, and achieved a 57% increase in Group revenues overall taking into account casino, bingo and TV advertising. Profit before Tax has also grown by four times to £1 million.
Programming highlights for its launch into Poland includes the Pokerheaven European Cash Game, a high stakes cash game featuring celebrated poker pros such as World Series of Poker winner, Peter Eastgate; the Cash Game Master Class, the first ever ‘how to’ series for cash game poker; the World Series of Poker and the World Poker Tour.
Chris White, Commercial Director at The Poker Channel said "Our expansion in to Eastern Europe further illustrates the growing demand for poker and gaming on TV. We are delighted to partner with Vectra Group and look forward to delivering quality programming to its thousands of customers."
Malgorzata Wojtaszko, TV Product Manager, Vectra Group said, "As the game's popularity continues to grow, we're delighted to be the first platform in Poland to launch The Poker Channel, and offer subscribers of our new sports package the very best poker action from around the world."
The Channel attracts close to one million unique viewers per month across Europe, with 65% of its viewers playing poker online every day.
-ENDS-
Media Enquiries Only
Esther Whitehead, GameOn Marketing
esther@GameOn-Marketing.com
The Poker Channel (www.pokerchanneleurope.com):
The Poker Channel is Europe's largest dedicated gaming TV network and broadcasts to 16 million cable homes in 17 countries. Gaming fans all over the world can also visit www.pokerchanneleurope.com for exclusive promotions, features, videos and news -- edited by a top team of international journalists and players.
The Poker Channel launched in March 2005 and now owns Europe's largest library of poker programming with more than 600 hours of premium content including the World Series of Poker and other major tournaments, instructional shows, news, documentaries and top player profiles. The Channel attracts close to one million unique TV viewers per month, with 65% of its TV viewers playing online every day.
Watch the Poker Channel:
• In the UK and Ireland on Sky Channel 166 from 9.30pm to 4am
• In France on Noos, Numericable, Free (Channels 48, 95 and 145) and Orange
• In Germany on Kabel Deutschland, KBW, Unity Media, NetCologne, NetMartens
• In Belgium on BeTV and Coditel (Channel 168)
• In Luxembourg on Coditel (Channel 168)
• In Netherlands on UPC Digital (Channel 127) and KPN (Channel 316)
• In Finland, on Welho (Channel 212) and Canal Digital (Channel 94)
• In Norway, Sweden and Denmark on Canal Digital (Channel 94)
• In Iceland on Skjarinn
• In Spain on Imagenio (Channel 98)
• In Malta on MelitaCable (Channel 209)
• In Switzerland on Zattoo
• In Greece on OnTelecom
• In Poland on Vectra
• Pan-Europe: at 1° West with set top box tuned to 11.229 GHZ Horizontal
• Globally at www.pokerchanneleurope.com
VECTRA Group (www.vectra.pl)
Vectra Group is the second largest cable operator in Poland and triple play service provider. The company operates in 151 towns and cities and the number of its customers exceeds 700,000. In the VECTRA offer is over 130 television programs emitted in the digital technology, also in HD standard and 55 programs realized by independent local televisions. VECTRA offers also services of the broadband internet access and fixed telephony. Thanks to digital television offer - unique on the Polish market --- VECTRA gained over 170,000 subscribers and is a domestic leader of this service. VECTRA has also over 200,000 subscribers of the broadband internet and 40,000 subscribers of telephony.
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