A+E Networks Germany will launch factual crime channel Crime + Investigation in Germany, Austria and Switzerland on June 29, 2019.
The channel will replace entertainment channel A&E, thus gaining carriage on all major pay-TV platforms. Its distribution partners include Sky, Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone, Unitymedia, 1&1, M7, content4tv, UPC, Teleclub, Suissedigital, A1 Telekom Austria, Liwest and Drei.
The channel, which mainly shows international and original documentaries, will reach around four million households in German-speaking countries at its launch. Details of the programme line-up will be presented at a press conference in Munich at the beginning of May 2019. A local website is already available at www.crimeandinvestigation.de.
Crime + Investigation is one of A+E Networks’ international channel brands which also include History, A&E, Lifetime, FYI, Viceland, Blaze and H2. The channel is already offered in the UK, Italy, Poland, Spain, Australia, Southeast Asia and Canada.
In German-speaking countries, A+E Networks Germany also operates documentary channel History. A&E emerged in 2014 from the Biography Channel (bio) which A+E Networks had launched in Germany in 2007.
“Crime + Investigation (CI) is already very popular in many countries,” said Dr Andreas Weinek, managing director of A+E Networks Germany. “Now we are bringing the channel brand into the German-language market and doing pioneering work, because with CI we are closing a gap in the German-speaking TV landscape: It is the first factual crime channel in the market.”
