MUMBAI: Close on the heels of making two major acquisitions, Discovery Communications has acquired 100 per cent of Switchover Media, an Italian media company that owns and operates four free-to-air television channels and one pay-TV television channel in Italy.

Combined with Discovery?s existing networks in the country, the acquisition of Switchover Media makes Discovery the third largest broadcaster in Italy in terms of collective audience share.

Discovery Communications has been on a shopping spree in Europe. The broadcaster had last year spent a little over $2.1 billion to acquire German media company ProSiebenSat.1 Group?s SBS Nordic operations and a minority stake in French media company TF1/Eurosport.

The acquisition not only made Discovery the biggest pay-TV operator outside US but also marked non-fiction major?s entry into scripted formats and sports.

?Italy is a leading market for Discovery and key to our growth here over the last two years has been the development of a successful free-to-air TV business strategy as this platform has grown," said Discovery Networks Western Europe President and MD Dee Forbes.

"The acquisition of Switchover Media adds further breadth and scale to that free-to-air strategy, as well as diversifying our portfolio to include scripted crime and children?s programming that have proven popular with audiences and advertisers."

Switchover Media Founder and Managing Partner Francesco Nespega said, ?I am confident that an international leader in the media segment, such as Discovery, with its contents and resources, will be able to further expand the potential of the channels we created and implemented.?

With the acquisition of Switchover, Discovery now has six free-to-air brands and six pay-TV brands in Italy. The combined business will beoverseen by Marinella Soldi, Managing Director Discovery Italy and General Manager Southern Europe, who is based in Milan. Francesco Nespega will cooperate with Discovery for the whole transition phase.

?Discovery and Switchover have both had such tremendous success in introducing new free-to-air channel offerings and growing audiences in Italy in a short period of time, that together we will be third in terms of audience share,? said Soldi.

Discovery?s free-to-air channels in Italy include Real Time, a female-targeted entertainment channel launched in 2010, and DMAX, which launched at the end of 2011. Discovery?s pay-TV brands in Italy include the global flagship Discovery Channel, as well as Animal Planet, Discovery Travel & Living, Discovery Science and Discovery World.

Switchover Media, established in 2009 by Nespega, operates two free-to-air channels targeted at adults, including Giallo, a scripted investigation and forensics entertainment channel targeted at women, and, Focus, a male-targeted factual entertainment channel. It also operates two free-to-air children?s channels, K2 and Frisbee, as well as GXT, a male-targeted pay-TV channel.

MUMBAI: US talk show queen Oprah Winfrey will speak exclusively with disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong in his first no-holds-barred interview, ?Oprah Winfrey and Lance Armstrong: A Worldwide Exclusive?.

Armstrong will address the alleged doping scandal, years of accusations of cheating and charges of lying about the use of performance-enhancing drugs throughout his storied cycling career.

The special 90-minute interview will air on 18 January at 1 pm and 9 pm on Discovery Channel and will repeat on 20 January at 9 pm.

In the interview, Winfrey speaks with Armstrong at his home in Austin, Texas in the only interview since the seven-time Tour de France winner was stripped of his titles and dropped from millions of dollars in endorsement deals after the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency released an extensive report accusing the renowned cyclist of doping throughout his career. Armstrong was given a lifetime ban on competing professionally. Late last year, Armstrong resigned as chairman of the foundation he created, Livestrong, which has raised hundreds of millions of dollars in the fight against cancer.

MUMBAI: US non-fiction broadcaster Discovery has announced upcoming new and returning series across its portfolio of US Networks, including Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, Science, Investigation Discovery and Velocity.

There?s the power of the presidency and then there?s the power of the men behind the president. Discovery Channel lifts the curtain for the extraordinary behind the scenes history of the White House Chiefs of Staff in ?The Presidents? Gatekeepers?, a 2013 world premiere television special event.

From the filmmaking team of brothers Gedeon and Jules Naudet, news producer Chris Whipple and Peacock Productions comes a series looking at the key moments, the quiet conversations, back room bargains and heated debates that made history and have never been heard before until now. In addition, White House photographer David Hume Kennerly serves as producer.

Battleground: Rhino Wars:

The world renowned Greater Kruger area of South Africa, just north of Johannesburg, is the new ground zero in a war to protect magnificent creatures on the edge of extinction.

Rhinoceroses are being hunted to death by poachers who will stop at nothing to kill them just to take their horns. The death toll is astonishing; each year, nearly 500 rhinos are killed with baby rhinos and calves separated from their mothers and left to fend on their own.

The human toll too is steep. More than 100 park rangers have been killed by these poachers in the battle to halt these criminals. The situation is worsening. Park rangers and security forces are desperate for help. And now four U.S. special forces veterans have come to help fight for the rhinos.

Beginning on 7 March Animal Planet will be embedded in ?Battleground: Rhino Wars, a three-part mini-series that documents this conflict that is centered on the worldwide commercial demand for rhino horns, an exotic commodity that?s more valuable than gold on the black market.

The mini-series reveals the conflict between blood-thirsty poachers and one of South Africa?s anti-poaching units, which has recruited armed forces to stop the illegal, lucrative trade of rhino horns. Cameras reveal a bloody war that these elite U.S. warriors find themselves fighting, in an area where both rhinos and people are being slaughtered with increasing regularity.

Four current and former members of the U.S. Special Ops (Navy Seals and a Green Beret) have been recruited and brought in to help the security forces. Together, they will survey the situation, train the anti-poaching corps, exchange tactical information and go on the front lines to help defeat these ruthless criminals before the rhinos are brought to total extinction.

Science Channel meanwhile will kick off this month ?Stuff You Should Know? - a new genre-bending television series about a real podcast that?s set in a fictional world. Let us explain?Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant are two real guys - uber-popular podcasters and actual Discovery Communications employees. Their podcast, also called Stuff You Should Know, is in the top ten on iTunes with more than five million monthly downloads. On 19 January Science Channel will follow Josh and Chuck inside and outside the recording booth with theseries that combines all the informational nuggets of their podcast and wraps them in deadpan mockumentary-style humour. Along for the ride are guests making cameo appearances, including John Hodgman, Sarah Silverman, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Rufus Wainwright, and Michio Kaku.

MUMBAI: Jungle Gold, a new reality series, is all set to make its debut on Discovery Channel beginning 7 January.

The series, which will air every night at 10 pm, is about rookie American gold miners George Wright and Scott Lomu who go bankrupt during the US real estate crash in 2008 that spiralled the world into a recession. 

With their houses and families? futures suddenly on the line, the duo head to the jungles of Ghana hoping to turn around their fortune by mining gold, which is available in abundance in the West African country.

After securing $150,000 from an investor, the two buy an 80 acre gold rich claim deep in the Ghanaian Jungle. The pressure is on from the very start to find gold to pay back this loan, as well as their other debts. 

But getting the gold out of the ground is only the first part. The real danger comes once they find it. Facing hostile, gun toting competitors, illegal roadblocks and underground mining operations, the pair learn that in Ghana, gold mining can be deadly.

MUMBAI: Discovery, which is a leader in US pay-TV market, is all set to become world?s leading pay TV programmer outside the US, after it acquired ProSiebenSat.1 Group?s SBS Nordic operations for $1.7 billion and a 20 per cent stake in Eurosport for$221.6 million ( ?170 million).

The acquisition of ProSiebenSat.1 Group?s SBS Nordic operations and a minority stake in TF1/Eurosport would add to Discovery Communications? earnings and accelerate the international growth, Discovery Communications CEO David Zaslav said on a conference call.

The two acquisitions will add sports and scripted programming to the company even as he sought to clarify that the wasn?t planning to become a player in US sports broadcast which has big players like ESPN and Fox Sports among others.

"The US sports TV business is a totally different business. I do not see us getting into big checks," Zaslav said.

Discovery, Zaslav said, now has 153 channels in 217 countries with more than 1.8 billion subscribers. He also pointed out that Discovery was a "unique" media company as it owns nearly all of its content, which allows it room for syndication.

Similarly, TLC, he said, is now in 150 countries and has more than 300 million subscribers worldwide, making it the number one female TV lifestyle brand in the world.

According to Zaslv, the two deals will help Discovery to grow faster.

On being asked as to when international would overtake US business, Discovery Networks International CEO Mark Hollinger said there would be "friendly rivalry" between the US and international teams.

Hollinger and Zaslav are also bullish about Eurosport which has a potential for growth in other regions inlcuding Asia. Eurosport was a viable proposition since it was focussed on low-cost sports like tennis and ice skating. It also airs Bundesliga outside of Germany where it is cheaper.