Closing up its final renewal with a major distributor, Crown Media Holdings, the owner and operator of Hallmark Channel, has renewed its affiliation agreement with Cablevision Systems, officials said Tuesday.
Under the terms of the new deal, Cablevision Systems will also have the right to distribute both the standard definition and HDTV versions of Hallmark Movie Channel, which are also part of Crown Media.
During the past year Crown Media has sewn up carriage renewals with its largest distributors. Most recently, in March, the programmer did an affiliation renewal for Hallmark Channel with DirecTV.
In February, Crown Media announced it had closed a carriage renewal with Time Warner Cable. Last fall, it completed a deal with Comcast in the fall last year.
Deal terms with Cablevision were not disclosed, but when Comcast inked its renewal with Crown in 2007, Oppenheimer & Co.’s Thomas Eagan estimated the Hallmark Channel parent contracted for between $0.04 and $0.08 on a monthly basis per subscriber.
In unveiling the new deal for Hallmark Channel and Cablevision, Crown Media cited the importance of carriage in the New York metro area.
“We are very happy to announce this renewal of our affiliation agreement with Cablevision which, because of its service area in and around New York City, is a particularly important partner in our ability to showcase our industry-leading, family-friendly programming,” Crown Media president and CEO Henry Schleiff said in a statement. “Indeed, this new agreement reflects both Cablevision’s and Crown Media’s emphasis on quality and service to our respective subscribers and viewers.”
