Alliance Atlantis
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Template:Infobox Company$1.02 billion CAN |
num_employees = 850 (2003)| homepage = www.allianceatlantis.com
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Alliance Atlantis Communications is a Toronto-based media company, which now operates primarily as a specialty service operator in Canada.
History
The current company was formed in 1998 from the merger of two former production companies, Alliance Communications and Atlantis Communications. The merger was a bit unusual in that the head of Atlantis, Michael MacMillan, became CEO of the new firm even though Atlantis was the smaller partner in the transaction; Alliance's CEO, Robert Lantos, was specifically interested in moving back into a production role. (The merger was also parodied on Made in Canada, when that show's Pyramid Productions merged with a company called Prodigy.)
At the time of the merger, both companies had launched various Canadian specialty television services; in 1995, Alliance launched Showcase while Atlantis launched Life Network; in fall 1997 the companies launched History Television and HGTV Canada respectively. Atlantis had also been a major investor in YTV in its first few years before selling out to what is now Corus Entertainment.
Alliance Atlantis has been known to fund projects regarded as too controversial by US companies, such as Bowling for Columbine; it was Canadian distributor of Fahrenheit 9/11.[1] In 2003, the company purchased the now defunct Salter Street Films, which produced a number of television shows for both the Canadian and international market.
Citing lower profits, it has all but closed its production arm, aside from the highly-profitable CSI: Crime Scene Investigation family of series, which it co-produces with CBS Productions. It briefly maintained Salter Street's long-running This Hour Has 22 Minutes before transferring the show to the Halifax Film Company, made up of former Salter Street employees.
Its primary business is now through its ownership of a number of Canadian specialty services, which, in addition to those listed above, now include Food Network Canada, Discovery Health, BBC Canada and BBC Kids and more.
Motion Picture Distribution LP, publicly traded through the Movie Distribution Income Fund Template:Tsx, is responsible for distribution of American- and Canadian-made films both in Canada and the United Kingdom, under the Alliance Atlantis and Odeon Films banners. In Canada it distributes the libraries of Miramax and New Line Cinema, among others. In partnership with Famous Players, this unit also operates Alliance Atlantis Cinemas, owner of three Toronto-area theatres.. All materials relating to Alliance Atlantis-distributed films now contain an awkwardly-worded disclaimer stating that Alliance Atlantis is "an indirect limited partner of Motion Picture Distribution LP, not a general partner". However, in fact, the company controls the general partner of the partnership, and hence continues to control the distribution unit itself.
