E1 Entertainment is broadening its profile on iTunes, selling series including Sanctuary and Terminal City via a newly launched channel.

The launch puts the distributor on the shelves of the online store alongside broadcasters such as CTV and CBC, and follows a move earlier this year that saw E1’s films and documentaries go up for grabs. (Films are catalogued differently from TV shows on iTunes.)

‘This is an important part of our strategy, not just in the film area, but in terms of exploiting all of our rights as an integrated content company,’ says co-president of E1 Films David Reckziegel.

E1 launched the iTunes channel with titles like Sanctuary because it also holds the show’s U.S. rights. The modest, eclectic channel is also selling the long-running Aussie series Macleod’s Daughters, the 1964 Japanese cartoon Gigantor and The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers, from 1980s America.

E1 also handles the Sanctuary DVDs, though Reckziegel insists the addition of iTunes won’t take away from its home market revenues.

‘Our experience — more on the feature film side — with putting out a film like Twilight on DVD, VoD and iTunes all at the same time, is that we’re adding new customers. One is not cannibalizing the other at this point… in fact we’re seeing an overall growth in revenue,’ Reckziegel tells Playback Daily.

An episode of Sanctuary goes for $2.99. Terminal City, $1.99.

Depending on the arrangement with producers and how much capital E1 has invested in a show, Reckziegel says the distributor will either take a distribution fee or give the producer a percentage of the iTunes revenues.

The company will also serve as an aggregator for iTunes in the U.S. and Canada — servicing smaller producers or companies with big libraries. ‘We’d become a distributor of digital rights,’ Reckziegel says.

E1’s shows are available at itunes.ca/e1tv.