La Sept/Arte, the French arm of the Franco-German arts channel Arte, is setting up unit for thematic channels, headed by Helene Mochiri. The first of these, in partnership with Robert Redford’s Sundance Channel group, will be a specialist film channel for international films, to be distributed via cable and satellite. The planned Arte/Sundance channel intends to show the best of world cinema, in the original language, uncut and uninterrupted. It will also feature shorts and documentaries. Press reports put the projected budget for the channel at Fr60 million (Euro 9 million), but the channel said that this budget has not yet been set. The channel could be launched this year.

Another project is for a channel on science, in co-operation with “knowledge channel” La Cinquieme. Arte shares a terrestrial frequency with La Cinquieme, and the government had planned to merge the two until it was pointed out that Arte is a co-operative channel with Germany.