Leonard Asper’s Anthem Sports and Entertainment has acquired Hollywood Suite, an independent Canadian broadcaster that carries four HD movie channels.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but pending regulatory approvals, Anthem will acquire the commercial-free movie channels featuring mostly Hollywood titles from the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, which will be distributed to 10 million homes across Canada.
Classic Hollywood films on the Hollywood Suite menu include Tom Cruise Cocktail, The AbyssTom Hanks' comedy Turner and the Troublemaker and Billy Wilder The Seventh Year Itchstarring Marilyn Monroe.
Led by Asper, who previously headed Canwest TV, Anthem Sports & Entertainment is a holding company that owns Gravitas Ventures, AXS TV, HDNet Movies, Impact Wrestling, Fight Network, TNA Wrestling and GameTV, among other businesses.
Asper aims to combine independent distributor Gravitas Ventures, acquired in 2021, and HDnet movies, home to blockbuster epics and period pieces, with Hollywood Suite as a pure-play movie service to bolster his company’s premium film offerings on both sides of the border.
Hollywood Suite Chairman and Co-Founder David Kines will continue to operate Hollywood Suite. Kines said The Hollywood Reporter The deal will give both companies greater movie buying and marketing power as they move beyond traditional TV platforms to embrace fast-growing business models like streaming and on-demand.
“We will leverage our respective curation capabilities and create and develop better channels across North America,” Kines said. Prior to founding Anthem in 2010, Asper served as CEO of Canwest Global Communications Corp., a position he held for about 10 years.
“Anthem is focused on providing fresh, unique content that appeals to a large and diverse network of passionate fan bases, and the acquisition of Hollywood Suite helps us advance this strategy in a meaningful way,” Asper said in a statement.