Sony Pictures Television has boosted its UK stable of channels to six after striking a multi-million pound deal to buy Dolphin Broadcasting, owner of channels including Movies4Men.
Sony Pictures Television (SPT), which announced the deal on Thursday, will also make its first move into TV ad sales in the UK, taking a majority stake in Dolphin's sales house.
Dolphin which owns five male-themed TV channels made revenue of £9.3m in the year to the end of June 2011.
Dolphin also represents TV ad sales for clients including True Movies, which is owned by CSC Media, Welsh public service broadcaster S4C and the teleshopping operations on Channel 4, ITV and BSkyB.
Filings at Companies House show the business made a pre-tax profit of £845,280 for the period. It is not known what SPT paid for Dolphin.
"Increasing our foothold in the UK is an important part of our Europe, Middle East and Africa growth plan," said Eddie Nelson, senior vice president of networks for EMEA at SPT.
SPT launched its first and only UK TV channel – Sony Entertainment Television – last year broadcasting to a female-skewed audience.
The channel, which launched on Sky in April and Virgin Media's cable platform in December, broadcasts shows such as BBC1's Hustle and the medical drama Hawthorne alongside films.
In terms of TV ad sales, SPT currently represents Rupert Murdoch's Fox channels in Romania and clients including Al Jazeera across the Adriatic region.
"Dolphin is an ideal fit for SPT as we develop our channel portfolio and focus on expanding Dolphin's market share of advertising sales," said Nelson.
SPT's separate production division owns companies including Gogglebox Entertainment and Victory Television, which make shows including ITV's The Exit List and Who Wants to be a Millionaire.
It did own a 20% stake in Elisabeth Murdoch's Shine, maker of shows including Merlin and MasterChef, but sold up when News Corporation took over the business in a £415m deal last summer.
SPT also has an international distribution arm responsible for shows such as Dragon's Den, Pan Am and Breaking Bad.
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