wfn.org | Odyssey Channel to be relaunched in April

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

March 5, 1999	Contact: Linda Green*(615)742-5470*Nashville, Tenn.
10-71B{123}

By Nancye M. Willis*

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) - The Odyssey Channel, an interfaith cable network,
will be relaunched in April in what one official calls an "aggressive plan"
to expand its audience around the country.

The channel recently merged with Hallmark Entertainment and Jim Henson Co.
The two partners invested $100 million to rejuvenate the struggling network.
The United Methodist Church will continue its longstanding relationship with
the channel, said Wil Bane, a staff executive at United Methodist
Communications.

"The United Methodist Church needs to be present in a TV channel of
religious and entertainment programming that is realistic about today's
issues," Bane said. The new channel's "soft launch" in the first week of
April offers an opportunity for what Bane called "serious input" into
Odyssey.

"Television is an influential medium that helps form our values, and may
contribute more to forming values than traditional sources," including
church bodies, said Bane, who also serves on the new Odyssey's board of
directors. "This provides the first opportunity that the church has had in
many years to be involved on this scale in the current moral dialogue the
country is experiencing."  

Under the leadership of Margaret Loesch, Odyssey's new chief executive
officer, the channel will begin an "aggressive plan to secure additional
carriage of the channel on cable systems nationwide," Bane said. 

"The goal is that Odyssey will become one of the top recognized networks,"
Bane added. That would be partially accomplished through programming,
including Henson's "Fraggle Rock" and "The Muppets," which have not been
aired for several years. "The network will also have access to the total
Hallmark library, including such productions as 'Moby Dick,' 'The Odyssey,'
'Lonesome Dove' and 'Merlin.' "

Under the new merger, the National Interfaith Cable Coalition (NICC) has
control of 30 hours of faith-based programming weekly, and equal input with
Henson and Hallmark for another 10 hours weekly.  

Included in the weekly lineup are "News Odyssey," a weekly news-based
series, and "Lawson Live," a  30-minute, weekly call-in show featuring
discussion of widely diverse viewpoints on social and human-rights issues
that affect minority communities. Beginning the week of April 5, "News
Odyssey" will air Saturdays at 12:30 p.m., repeated Sundays at 11 p.m.;
"Lawson Live," Sundays at 11:30 p.m. (all times Eastern). The worship
service of Pasadena (Calif.) United Methodist Church will continue to air on
Sundays at 12:30 p.m.

Most of the channel's faith-based programming will air mornings and
weekends, Bane said. "Specifically religious programs compete better in the
daytime and draw a better audience.

"It's a very positive step," he concluded. "This new arrangement represents
the fact that the church in general is serious about being a meaningful part
of the world of television."

More programming changes are among those expected to be implemented in the
fall.  

New offices in Los Angeles will house much of the channel's administrative
and executive functions, with offices in New York continuing to maintain
affiliate relations, advertising, trafficking and operations functions.  

In an interview last summer, Bane said that Odyssey has broken even overall
since becoming for-profit a couple of years ago. It posted a profit one year
and a slight loss another, he said. However, it had made money by
controlling spending instead of aggressively trying to make the channel
known, he said. NICC began seeking a partner interested in the same type of
programming, and the search led to Hallmark and Henson.

NICC, a consortium of nearly 70 faith groups, including the United Methodist
Church, has operated the channel since its inception more than 10 years ago.
Since 1995, it has done so in partnership with Liberty Media Corp., a
subsidiary of Tele-Communications Inc. 

Odyssey is available to about 30 million U.S. households that receive cable.
It is carried by 1,500 cable systems, the Primestar direct-to-home satellite
service and the C-Band dish system.

# # #

*Willis is promotional resources coordinator for the Public Media Marketing
unit of United Methodist Communications.

______________
United Methodist News Service
http://www.umc.org/umns/
newsdesk@umcom.umc.org
(615)742-5472