Cannes, France: ChumCity International held talks at MIPCOM on new station and programming block launches in Chile, Mexico, Brazil and China. Kevin Byles, ChumCity VP and general manager, wasn’t specific about financials, but it appears the maverick Toronto-based broadcaster had a highly lucrative fall program market.

ChumCity, Latin American media company Claxson (providing management services) and EDU (for cable and satellite distribution) will provide an Argentinean MuchMusic feed to a new Santiago, Chile-based broadcaster with four additional hours a day of original local programming. ‘That’s until we can ramp up because we’re launching it so quickly – in December,’ says Byles.

ChumCity is also set to launch a MuchMusic block in Mexico on widely distributed public network Canal Once (Channel 11). It’s also a partnership with Claxson and opens with a two-hour branded weekday block. ‘We expect it to grow significantly, and the object, of course, is a fully branded new channel,’ says Byles, a former executive with WB Canada and WB International.

In Brazil, a market in ChumCity’s sights for several years now, the company has announced two major developments – a terrestrial Citytv format launch in Sao Paulo (pop. 24 million) in partnership with IG, a large domestic ISP service, planned for this time next year; as well as a MuchMusic branded specialty channel (distributed in more than nine million homes) in partnership with IG and Claxson.

‘As a Canadian company, breaking into China is really huge for us,’ says Byles. ChumCity, RTV, a German investor group, and partners in Shanghai and Singapore are prepping a 2002 launch of a hybrid [entertainment and education] digital broadband channel [delivered to TV and computers] and based in Shanghai. The deal is a go, says Byles, who flew to China on Oct. 25. ‘They [the partners] signed the long form and have paid us a significant upfront fee for this.’

ChumCity sells programming and Much/City licensing formats. ‘Our sales people frankly said this year was very strong, there were more serious buyers and our new-business sales exceeded renewals, which I am really pleased about,’ says Byles.

-www.chumlimited.com