Starz Entertainment has decided to tap into the fast-growing U.S. Hispanic population with a new Spanish-language station, it announced on Tuesday.
Encore Espanol, which is slated to launch August 1 on Starz's cable, satellite and telecom affiliates, will mirror the programming on Starz's Encore channel, in Spanish, broadcasting 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, uncut and commercial-free. Initial offerings on the new channel will include "The Princess and the Frog" (pictured), "The Fast and the Furious" and "The Bourne Identity," with Starz exploiting its output deals with Disney and Sony for programming.
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Encore Espanol will be Starz's eighth Encore channel overall.
Stephan Shelanski, Starz's executive vice president of programming, said that Encore Espanol will help "bring families together to see quality movies at home, regardless of language preference."
Starz also announced that Encore Family is replacing Encore Wam as a channel that will "satisfy the growing demand for ad-free channels, safe from objectionable content," and Encore Mystery will change its name to Encore Suspense. In addition, Encore Action and Encore Drama have been added to the company's HD roster, raising Statz's number of HD channels to 11.