By Melissa Kasule

Canal+-owned M7 Group has struck a multi-year capacity deal with BBC Studios for the HD satellite distribution of BBC Earth in CEE and Turkey, excluding Poland.

Under the deal, the Luxembourg-based outfit will deliver BBC Studios with a comprehensive full-service satellite contribution solution via THOR 5 at 1 degree West, including multiplexing, encoding, encryption and uplinking. It will enable the safe and secure reception of BBC Earth by its third-party customers within the Europe-wide footprint of THOR 5.

BBC Earth will continue to be distributed to subscribers of the M7-owned pay-tv platforms DirectOne (Hungary) and Focus Sat (Romania) via the same feed,

Commercial director BBC Studios CEE, Zbigniew Pruski said: “For many years, M7 Group is an important content partner for BBC Studios for various European markets. I am excited that our cooperation is now extending into the provision of technical satellite distribution services for BBC Earth in CEE and Turkey. We have great confidence in the professional skills and customer focus of the M7 Platform Services team, and we look forward to our enlarged partnership with M7.”

VP platform content services at M7 Group, Bill Wijdeveld said: “M7 and BBC Studios enjoy a long-standing cooperation for the distribution of BBC Studios flagship channels throughout the various M7 markets, thereby greatly enhancing the attractiveness of our content offering. We are very pleased with the opportunity to broaden our partnership with the provision of satellite distribution services, and we look forward to a continued, fruitful cooperation.”