As senior vice president and head of international at AETN, Sean Cohan oversees both the channels and content sales business worldwide. Asked about the internal tussles that can, and do, often occur, Cohan acknowledges the advantages of both those business lines ultimately reporting to him. Asked whether AETN International is a content or a channels business, he answers as diplomatically as he can. “That’s a very good question. We have been increasingly successful selling content. And our channel ratings are up for this year, in both new and existing territories. We have a very clear proposition when it comes to content, we are very content driven. We are in both the content–sales and the channels business, but overall we are a content business.” Channel–wise, recent launches in Taiwan, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, as well as expanded channels reach in both Korea and the Philippines. “In Japan, we closed 2009 with History in the making A later entrant into some Asian markets than many of their network peers, AETN International is witnessing significant growth in the region. Television Asia Plus talks to AETN’s Senior Vice President and Head of International Sean Cohan History having spent several months as the number one factual channel in that market. History also spent several months as the number one factual channel in Singapore,” says Cohan. “On 1 March 2010 we launched a daily block in China, a major output deal with Yuan Chan. The block, called New Horizons, carries a mix of programming including History, Science & Technology, Biography and Crime. This is distributed to six regional broadcasters, including Shanghai Media Group’s Arts Channel, reaching over 20 million subscribers. We expect to grow this reach significantly this year; ratings in China are already beating those of other international channel brands.” On the content licensing and distribution side of the business, more deals were announced at MIPTV 2010. With Q1 2010 having seen more than 450 hours of content licensed to over 25 broadcasters in Asia, AETN International announced two new licensing deals in Japan with BS–TBS and Nippon TV. An output deal with BS–TBS comprised programming from the History catalogue that will air as part of BS–TBS’s dedicated history–themed slot, BS History Hour. The agreement with Nippon TV is for the acclaimed series, Life After People. The acquisition of the series follows the ratings success last year of the two hour special Life After People. AETN International has also boosted its sales team for Asia Pacific with the appointment of Joanne Lim as Content Sales Executive, Asia. Based in AETN’s Singapore offices, Lim will oversee program sales throughout South East Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan, reporting to Ling Sze Gan, Content Sales Director, Asia. Prior to joining AETN International, Lim held positions at BBC Worldwide and ITV. The company also sealed a number of new licensing agreements for its short form content, including a trial partnership with CNG (Chinese National Geography) to launch AETN content on China’s cellular mobile platform. The content will serve as an educational tool to help subscribers to learn English. Included in the agreement are clips from Biography, BioBites and Need to Know. Asked about the accusation that factual entertainment is dumbing–down in the race for ratings, Cohan said, “We are about factual and informative programming alongside entertainment – making it accessible. I think some players forget that it’s about the content – sometimes our peers have swerved too far towards the commercial.” Continues Cohan, “But we are fortunate in that we aren’t limited in subject matter, we can tackle lots of different topics through a historical lens – so we can be more entertaining, more inclusive. We have our strong core content, with the additional freedom to be adventurous, to push the limits.” “It’s always about informing, about entertaining. Despite the downturn, our budgets stayed the same in 2009. To paraphrase ‘keep it simple stupid’ – it’s all about the content stupid, maintaining a healthy mix and balance including core history, biography and crime.” “Back to your question on channels versus content: at the core of our DNA is the channels, but we need to synergize. With a library of 8,000 hours and growing, there’s a lot of programming that isn’t being used, hence it makes sense to deploy that content elsewhere. Channel operations are at the core – we see a great future in that business – we’ll never be a free TV channels business, we’re very much in the pay–TV business.”