Voom Taps AOL for Everest Promotion
New York — Rainbow Media’s Voom HD Networks and documentary-production company Atlantic Productions have signed an agreement with AOL to promote Ueverest.com, a Web site tracking a team of Mount Everest climbers making a film about the death of legendary mountaineer George Mallory near the summit.
AOL’s True Stories documentary site (http://movies.aol.com/true stories) will feature exclusive videos, blogs and other content from the Altitude Everest Expedition 2007 project.
Voom expects to air a behind-the-scenes documentary about the climb that will air in the first quarter of 2008 on its extreme-sports channel, Rush HD. A theatrical film on the expedition is scheduled for release in early 2008.
Voom general manager Greg Moyer declined to disclose the budget of the Everest project, but he said it’s the largest single project the cable programmer has undertaken.
Given that the only U.S. distributor for Voom’s HD channels today is EchoStar Communications’ Dish Network, is the idea to encourage fans of the film to lobby their local cable companies to carry Voom?
Moyer replied: “What we have to do is be out in the popular culture with buzz-worthy content. If we do that often enough, people will say, 'Geez, how can I live without Voom?’”
But, he added, “I don’t want to make the leap that we’re going to get there with one project.”
Altitude Everest Expedition 2007, which involves about 80 people on and off the mountain, is currently in the middle of an approximately 40-day trek. The film’s producers are investigating Mallory’s final climb, in an attempt to determine whether he actually reached the summit of Everest in 1924.
New York — Rainbow Media’s Voom HD Networks and documentary-production company Atlantic Productions have signed an agreement with AOL to promote Ueverest.com, a Web site tracking a team of Mount Everest climbers making a film about the death of legendary mountaineer George Mallory near the summit.
AOL’s True Stories documentary site (http://movies.aol.com/true stories) will feature exclusive videos, blogs and other content from the Altitude Everest Expedition 2007 project.
Voom expects to air a behind-the-scenes documentary about the climb that will air in the first quarter of 2008 on its extreme-sports channel, Rush HD. A theatrical film on the expedition is scheduled for release in early 2008.
Voom general manager Greg Moyer declined to disclose the budget of the Everest project, but he said it’s the largest single project the cable programmer has undertaken.
Given that the only U.S. distributor for Voom’s HD channels today is EchoStar Communications’ Dish Network, is the idea to encourage fans of the film to lobby their local cable companies to carry Voom?
Moyer replied: “What we have to do is be out in the popular culture with buzz-worthy content. If we do that often enough, people will say, 'Geez, how can I live without Voom?’”
But, he added, “I don’t want to make the leap that we’re going to get there with one project.”
Altitude Everest Expedition 2007, which involves about 80 people on and off the mountain, is currently in the middle of an approximately 40-day trek. The film’s producers are investigating Mallory’s final climb, in an attempt to determine whether he actually reached the summit of Everest in 1924.
