Beta Film’s Autentic plans mores Spark channel launches

Autentic has launched factual and entertainment channel Spark in South Africa.

Autentic is the joint venture doc producer created by German producer and distributor Beta Film and former Discovery Germany boss Partick Hoerl in 2008.

It has launched Spark on South African pay TV platform ODM and it is being programmed with content from the libraries of Autentic and ZDF Enterprises, the commercial arm of German public broadcaster ZDF.

The line-up covers docs across the nature, environment, wildlife to history, travel and adventure categories

Partick Hoerl said Autentic plans to roll out Spark in other international territories following the African launch.

“The partnership between Autentic and ZDF Enterprises provides a tremendous output of world class original productions,” he said. “We strongly believe that there is a lot of interest for high quality factual programming throughout the world. Our next step is to expand Spark to territories in Eastern Europe and Asia.”

Autentic already operates several special-interest channels in Africa and Europe, including Spiegel Geschichte and Spiegel TV in Germany and Austria.