New A+E net Blazes into Italy

A+E’s new factual-entertainment channel Blaze will launch on Sky Italia today.

The channel launched on free-to-air DTT in the UK last year and the Italian roll out is the second for the net.

As with the UK channel, Sky’s ad sales unit, Sky Media, will handle advertising for the channel.

Many of A+E’s European channels are run as part of its joint venture with Sky Italia owner Sky, but in Italy it is wholly-owned after the company came out of a deal with Fox.

Blaze is programmed with fact-ent and ob-doc programming, which A&E has in plentiful supply from its US nets.

“By offering uniquely innovative, original, and quality content, Blaze will be the place for those viewers looking for remarkable, extraordinary characters and stories,” Dean Possenniskie, general manager, EMEA, A+E Networks.

In Italy Blaze will have shows including Ax Men, Power & Ice, Mountain Men, Barter Kings, Storage Wars, and Down East Dickering. A motoring strand, meanwhile, will have shows including Off Road Warriors and Leepu & Pitbull.

Luca Revelli, senior director, partner channels and digital, at Sky Italia said: “We are confident that Blaze will immediately capture an audience, particularly men, ready to be fascinated by America’s most unexpected stories, the America of ordinary people with extraordinary lives.”

For A+E, the news comes soon after its COO of its UK-headquarted European unit, Nicolas Eglau, exited, with a trio of execs replacing him.