Los Angeles, CA – Steve Bellamy, Chairman and CEO of The Ski Channel television network, announced today that it has entered into a long-term distribution agreement with Comcast that will provide the channel’s original programming, Warren Miller movies, Greg Stump films, destination travel, instructional videos and events to Comcast On Demand customers. This deal brings the 18-month-old network to more than 43 million U.S. households between all television distributors. Additionally, the network has produced a slate of original films and will launch a national film tour in the fall.n“Our deal with Comcast enables us to reach skiers and snow sports enthusiasts in destination ski areas and local and ski destination feeder markets,” said Bellamy. “The fact that Comcast is innovative and advancing television technology enhances the value proposition immensely for us as we, too, are on the cutting edge of technology.”
“The Ski Channel brings great independent programming to our customers and is a unique and targeted fit for many of our local markets,” said Matt Strauss, Senior Vice President of New Media at Comcast.
The Ski Channel has also produced a slate of original ski films that will be a part of a massive U.S. grassroots film tour in mid-October. Through long-term exclusive partnerships with the National Ski Council Federation and the National Ski and Snowboard Retailers Association, ski clubs and ski shops around America, The Ski Channel will hold local premieres of the films before they are distributed on the television network.
Promoters will have a choice of two full-length feature films and one short film. “The Story” stars Bode Miller, Lindsey Vonn, Willie Bogner, Kristi Leskinen, Chris Benchetler, Reggie and Zack Crist, Mike Douglas and numerous other stars of skiing, snowboarding, wing suit flying, speed flying, river surfing and kite skiing. The film takes viewers into deep character dives with the most famous skiers to the most obscure ski bums as well as to the top of Mount Everest, never-before-skied skyscraper lines in Alaska and various gut-wrenching variations on human flight.
A full-length documentary on skiing’s greatest rebel and cult hero, Bill Johnson, has also been produced. The definitive sports Greek Tragedy, Johnson’s story starts with his Ali-like claim that everyone else was racing for second. The “nose picker,” as Franz Klammer called him, made good on his bet as he struck gold in Sarajevo at the downhill in the 1984 Winter Olympics. Two more World Cup victories followed shortly after and Johnson was the world’s greatest downhiller…
“And then it was gone,” said Phil Mahre of Johnson’s life. The documentary follows Johnson through the story of trying to win back his family and his life.
Lastly, a documentary on the late Shane McConkey was in production last year, but unfortunately four days into the shoot, he was killed in a ski wing suit base jump in the Dolomites. Those four days have been packaged into a short film with Shane, his wife and daughter as well as legendary snowboarder Jeremy Jones with his daughter.