24 Horrors a Day

A Friday article in the New York Daily News about Lions Gate Films’ purchase of a large film library has an interesting little aside in it: Lions Gate may be planning a 24-hour horror-movie channel.

This is particularly interesting in light of two things:

1. Lions Gate’s current commitment to horror (they’re the studio behind Saw, High Tension, The Devil’s Rejects, Open Water, and a lot of the other recent horror movies that have made news).

2. The consistent failure of The Horror Channel to actually launch.

The Horror Channel was to be the first 24-hour-a-day horror network. However the company has so far been unable to secure carriage from cable or satellite providers and has missed two launch deadlines (the most recent of which was to be early this year).

It’s interesting to see a larger player enter a market in which a smaller player has been unable (so far) to succeed. Hopefully competition will help move one or both of these channels to the airwaves.