Following its recent carriage agreement with Media Mostis NTV service in Russia, Discovery Networks Europe is close to signing a carriage agreement for three of its digital ëshowcasei channels in Scandinavia.

Discovery Networks Europeis managing director, Joyce Taylor, told Interspace at The Guardian Edinburgh Television Festival that the network was "close to an agreement with Canal Digital", the Canal Plus/Telenor-backed pay-TV service, for carriage of Discovery Travel and Adventure, Civilisations and Sci-Trek.

Meanwhile, Taylor said she was not particularly worried by recent negative press speculation on the future of NTV in Russia. "Itis par for the course," she said. "There are two costs to us – the cost of distribution and the cost of languaging. The opportunity is to fill shelf space so we take the risk."

Taylor said Discovery was "looking for an opportunity to launch more [channels]" in Germany after the merger of DF1 and Premier took it to an estimated 900,000 subscribers by the end of the year. Discoveryis foresight in forming a joint venture with Kirch Group has been highlighted by the misfortune of third party channels such as MTV and BBC Prime in failing to find space within the new Premier World bouquet. "We saw we needed to have a German partner," said Taylor. "We chose Kirch. History has shown that it was the right choice to make." It seems likely that a German Animal Planet is likely to be the first of any future channels added to the platform.