German DVD company e-m-s new media, the publicly-listed concern which bought into film rights trader Advanced Medien in December, has taken stakes in TV production house AZAWAKH and multimedia company get.

Dortmund-based e-m-s has taken a 30% interest in AZAWAKH to develop formats for exploitation on TV and DVD. Named after a South African greyhound, AZAWAKH has broadcaster clients such as VOX, Onyx-TV and regional channel NRW 1. The other 70% shareholding is held by Studio Dortmund, which has production credits including regional programme 17:30- live aus Dortmund for commercial channel SAT.1.

e-m-s has acquired a 10% shareholding in get, which specialises in interactive TV and Video-on-Demand (VoD) services. get is developing a multimedia portal for users to receive more than 300 TV and radio channels. Customers will be able to select from ten different feature films via a VoD service, plus download music titles, surf on the Internet or use the system as a digital video recorder.

The acquisitions form part of the operation strategy of not binding itself to any one platform.