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Last year’s release of the Atresplayer Premium pay TV platform involved stepping up Atresmedia’s bet on original TV content production, particularly in fiction series.

Part of its transformation process from traditional broadcasting group to a digital content producer, Atresplayer Premium is giving the group a new distribution window for Spain and the rest of the world.

With a remarkable presence in Spain and Latin America, Atresplayer Premium’s subscribers number has grown significantly from 140,000 at the end of last year to 253,000 in June.

“It’s clear that direct-to-consumer is the way to go. Atresplayer Premium will continue growing in 2021,” says María Rúa Aguete, executive director at research company Omdia.

“Atresplayer shows three different types of programming: Linear broadcasting of the group’s TV channels, previews of programs that will later release on free-to-air, and originals,” explains José Antonio Antón, director of programming, content and digital at Atresmedia.

With Atresplayer Premium,...

It’s 007 in the saddle! Sean Connery didn’t become a career cowboy but his one stint as a Louis L’Amour hero is a diverting change of pace. And we couldn’t resist the pairing of two of moviedom’s most attractive actors — Connery and Brigitte Bardot.

Shalako

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1968 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 113 min. / Street Date July 11, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Sean Connery, Brigitte Bardot, Stephen Boyd, Jack Hawkins, Peter van Eyck, Honor Blackman, Woody Strode, Eric Sykes, Alexander Knox, Valerie French, Julián Mateos, Don ‘Red’ Barry.

Cinematography: Ted Moore

Film Editor: Bill Blunden

Original Music: Robert Farnon

Written by J.J. Griffith, Hal Hopper, Scot Finch, Clarke Reynolds from the novel by Louis L’Amour

Produced by Euan Lloyd

Directed by Edward Dmytryk

It’s true, after five consecutive James Bond movies, we weren’t exactly ready to see Sean Connery as an American cowboy hero.

Canadian-born actress Alexis Smith (born 1921) would have turned 96 years old today, June 8. Turner Classic Movies is celebrating her birthday by presenting nine of her movies, mostly during her time as a Warner Bros. contract player. In addition to Michael Curtiz's box office hit Night and Day, a highly fictionalized Cole Porter biopic starring Cary Grant as a heterosexual version of the famed gay composer. Night and Day is being shown as part of TCM's Gay Pride Month celebration. Alexis Smith died on June 9, 1993, the day after she turned 72. After her film career petered out in the 1950s, she went on to receive acclaim on the Broadway stage, making sporadic film appearances all the way to the year of her death. Smith's last film appearance was in a minor supporting role in Martin Scorsese's overly genteel period drama The Age of Innocence (1993), starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Winona Ryder.