The Ski Channel

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**The Ski Channel**
Type	Cable Video On Demand network
Availability	United States, national (launches 1st quarter of 2008)
Founded	by Steve Bellamy
Owner	Atonal Sports and Entertainment

The Ski Channel is a VOD cable television network founded by Steve Bellamy who also founded Tennis Channel television network. It features mountain oriented sports, activity and lifestyle content and is the only cable television network devoted to the wide variety of year round mountain activities such as skiing, snowboarding, hiking, biking, backpacking, climbing, etc, along with many off-slope activities. Thus far distribution deals with Time Warner Cable, Brighthouse Networks and Cox Communications have been announced, but Bellamy has stated that numerous other distribution deals that will be announced shortly. The network is to launch sometime in 2008.

1 Programming
2 The Ski Channel Film Festival
3 Programs
4 External Links
5 References

[edit] Programming

The network broadcasts events, movies, destination travel, news, equipment, instructional, real estate and all the different sports and activities that take place in the mountains in both the summer and winter. The channel carries ski, snowboard, mountain bike, rock climbing, base jumping, luge, hiking and a number of other mountain sports. The only event rights that the channel has announced was the World Heli Championships that takes place in New Zealand and is the billed as the most extreme sporting event in the world.

Olympic Gold Medalist, Jonny Moseley is an investor in the channel and has his own show called “Air It Out With Jonny Moseley.” Moseley hosted MTV’s Road Rules for 3 years and was also a host of Saturday Night Live^[1]. To announce the channel and Moseley, they threw a baby shower that was attended by ski and snowboard stars: Julia Mancuso, Kirstina Koznick, Lauren Ross and Dash Longe and an assortment of other celebrities attended: Alexandra Paul, Donna Mills, Melissa Rivers, Dawnn Lewis, Jaron Lowenstein, Scott Grimes, Kevin Durand, Amy Pietz, Jason Gray Stanford, Sinjin Smith, Pam Shriver and George Lazenby^[2].

[edit] The Ski Channel Film Festival

The network announced it will hold an annual film festival devoted to mountain sports starting in 2008-2009 and that legendary filmmaker Warren Miller is involved. According to Ski Channel Executives there is a large amount of these types of film produced every year providing the need for this type of a festival.