on a proposed pay television service, Hallmark Entertainment Network, which first launched in the Benelux region. After partnering on the 1996 miniseries Gulliver's Travels, Hallmark Entertainment began a joint venture with The Jim Henson Company to launch Kermit Channel—a chain of family-oriented pay television channels in Asia that would be devoted to carrying the libraries of Jim Henson (including the Muppets franchise) and Hallmark Entertainment, as well as preschool programming provided by Children's Television Workshop. In 1998, Hallmark Entertainment and Jim Henson acquired major stakes in Odyssey Network, an American religious cable network. Liberty Media, who was a partner in the channel alongside the National Interfaith Cable Coalition, had discouraged Hallmark from attempting to launch a cable network in the U.S. After the purchase, the two companies relaunched the channel in 1999 with a larger focus on family entertainment programming. Crown Media Holdings In 2000, Odyssey's ownership group was re-organized into Crown Media Holdings, with Hallmark, Chase Equity Associates, Liberty Media, and the National Interfaith Cable Coalition transferring their shares in Odyssey to the company, and plans for an IPO. Hallmark received all of Crown Media's class B shares, which were worth ten votes each, thus giving it control of Crown Media. After The Jim Henson Company was sold to German company EM.TV & Merchandising in February 2000, it withdrew from the Kermit Channel partnership with Crown Media, and sold its remaining stake in Odyssey the following month in exchange for 8% of Crown Media's stock. The company went public in May 2000, selling 10 million shares at $14 per share for about $140 million. Hallmark president and CEO Robert Halmi, Jr. became chairman of Crown Media, and David Evans became president and CEO of Crown Media Holdings. While its channels had 50 million subscribers at the IPO, the company had not turned a profit; Hallmark Entertainment Network lost $35.5 million in 1998 on revenue of $23.7 million, and in 1999 it lost $56.7 million on revenue of $31.9 million. A digital media subsidiary, Crown Interactive, was established in 2001, which attempted to launch a video on-demand platform in Singapore. In April 2001, Crown Media purchased 700 titles from Hallmark Entertainment Distribution, a subsidiary of Hallmark Entertainment, for its cable channels and Crown Interactive. In payment for the titles, Crown Media took on $220 million in debt and granted over 30 million shares of stock to Hallmark Entertainment. Hallmark's stake