JAMAICAN -based Caribbean Entertainment Everyday Network (CEEN) TV recently inked a deal that will allow it to expand its distribution of regional content to the diaspora in North America.

A stamp of approval from the broadcasting commission in Canada for CEEN to start programming there has cleared the way for the subsidiary of International Media Content (IMC) — also parent company of SportsMax — to finalise an agreement with Rogers Communications to roll out services.

Since starting operations last September, CEEN TV has been broadcasting in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut through the cable provider Cablevision.

“What we’ve seen prior to going into the market is that there was a huge demand for Caribbean content based on the fact that there is no platform which actually takes it to them on a current basis,” said Tanya Lee, regional marketing manager for the company. “Our content is current, new, and the fact that we do it 24/7, 365 is also new.”

Along with a daily news package filmed at CEEN’s studios and live transmissions of sporting events such as the recent staging of the ISSA Boys’ and Girls’ Championships, the station provides audiences abroad with regular episodes of Impact with Cliff Hughes and On-Stage with Winford Williams.

But don’t peg them as solely Jamaican.

“We don’t want to position CEEN as a Jamaican channel. It’s also Trinidad, Barbados, Guyana. We even had live coverage of the elections in Belize. So it’s those countries that we’ve identified as having large pockets that live in the US, Canada, and UK markets.” said Lee.

The bulk of its revenue comes from user subscriptions, but CEEN TV general manager Christopher Telfer said the challenge the company faces is balancing its content with the differences in audience makeup across its markets.

“In the US the dominant group is Jamaica, but when you get up to Canada it’s more even between Trinidad and Jamaica, and in certain pockets within those markets it’s skewed towards Guyana, skewed towards Barbados,” he said. “So it depends on who your platform is, who your distributor is, and the numbers there — you have to have a balance.”

Though official census numbers put the diaspora population in the United States at around 1.5 million, the market for consumers of Caribbean content is much larger, according to Telfer.

“We speculate based on other research that we’ve done that its probably in the region of four million, so that’s four million people living over there who want to see Caribbean content,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

CEEN’s largest competitor for the tri-state area market is Caribbean International Network (CIN), which broadcasts a little over 30 hours a week and provides news from Trinidad and Jamaica on a roundup basis rather than live.

Now CEEN is in talks with Comcast, the largest cable provider in America, but securing distribution rights for the UK and the rest of the US is still a battle.

“We know what the numbers are like, but a cable operator might not be familiar with what the numbers are for the Caribbean market. And so lobbying from our diaspora there is critical to how we roll out our service to the entire community.” said Lee.