Way back when I used to work for TV Guide, there was a great deal of evidence that–hard as we all worked on feature stories–folks mainly bought the little magazine for the listings. Specifically, many readers would take the mag, sit down, and highlight all the movies in the week ahead that they wanted to see.
There probably aren’t enough trees left to print a weekly TV Guide which would list the 450 movies a month now being offered on Hollywood Suite. The brand new, multi-platform movie service just became available to Bell satellite customers over the weekend and is already up and running on Eastlink, Telus Optik, SaskTel MAX and MTS TV.
Why another movie channel? With basic cable and satellite bills already pretty pricey, not everyone can afford HBO Canada, Movie Central, The Movie Network or Super Channel. Hollywood Suite is free for the next two months, and will cost less than half the premium channel premium after that.
Beyond those expensive channels, movies on regular TV are getting scarce and when films do get a window on Peachtree or AMC, for example, the same five John Hughes films they show in marathon rotations every weekend get chopped up with dozens of lame and noisy ads.
Former MuchMusic boss and now Hollywood Suite co-founder David Kines and a few of his CHUM/City pals have made deals with major studios Warner Bros. and MGM to flow content onto the new Hollywood Suite platforms. All 450 films a month are commercial free, uncut and unedited, run 24/7 and all are available in HD.
The catch? The films aren’t brand new releases. The studios get a premium from hotel, pay and on-demand customers for anything launched in the last nine months. Hollywood Suite offers the best beyond those titles. Think of them as the video store between HBO and TCM.
There are several holiday titles playing this month, including Elf (Dec. 24), Blizzard (Dec. 23) and You’ve Got Mail (Dec. 24). Is Edward Scissorhands a Christmas movie? It’s also on Dec. 24.
More distribution deals are in the works, says Kines. For more information, and to check channel choices in your area, check out the Hollywood Suite site here.
2 Comments
Awesome! I just checked and have this channel and would never have heard of it if not for your blog. “commercial free, uncut and unedited, run 24/7 and all are available in HD.”?! Love it, I don’t like watching movies knowing that they’re edited down for time.
What alias said. Bell does itself no favours not letting us know when new channels or previews are available. I guess we’re just supposed to figure this out ourselves.
If I hadn’t done my normal “go to TSN then down” move, I wouldn’t have found that I had four new channels….
And I do have to admit: I started watching “Malena” on one of them last weekend only because it starred Monica Bellucci.
But I’d like some props for actually watching and falling in love with the entire movie. Brilliant.