MUMBAI: ESPN Star Sports (ESS), Asia‘s leading sports broadcast network, has signed new carriage deals for its cricket dedicated channel Star Cricket in the Philippines and Indonesia, highlighting its expanding footprint beyond traditional cricket markets.

In addition, with a new carriage deal for Star Cricket recently secured in Indonesia, cricket fans across the country can anticipate the channel to being available very soon.

Launched in 2007 in the Indian sub-continent, Star Cricket has continued to expand in non-traditional cricket markets over the years with presence in South East Asian markets such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Papua New Guinea, the Maldives and now the Philippines.

ESS also successfully launched Star Cricket HD in July last year in key markets across Asia such as India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Singapore.

ESPN Star Sports MD Peter Hutton said, "We‘re delighted to be able to help the ICC grow the game worldwide, and to see Star Cricket increase its popularity across Asia."

Star Cricket features international cricket events across all formats of the game and its line-up of cricket properties includes the marquee International Cricket Council (ICC) events, international and domestic cricket from India, Australia and England and Champions League Twenty20.

In addition, it also showcased the inaugural edition of the Sri Lankan Premier League and the Bangladesh Premier League earlier this year.

MUMBAI: Setanta Sports, the international sports broadcaster, has agreed a multi-year deal to distribute its exclusive rugby programming on Multi Screen Media?s sports channel Sony Six.

Sony Six will broadcast live coverage of the RBS Six Nations, Super Rugby and Rugby Championship (formerly Tri Nations) as well as showing Setanta?s flagship rugby programme: The Breakdown.

"We are delighted to work with Sony SIX to bring our exclusive rugby programming to India. Our goal is to achieve the greatest possible exposure of rugby across the whole of Asia," said Setanta Sports International MD Roger Hall.

Setanta Sports has extensive distribution for its channel and programming in Asia with deals in Thailand (with TrueVisions), Hong Kong (with Now TV and Hong Kong Broadband), Malaysia and Brunei (with Astro), Singapore (with StarHub and SingTel mio TV), Taiwan (with Dish HD), the Philippines (with SKYcable) and Sri Lanka (with Dialog TV).

Sony Six has Indian Premier League and Ultimate Fighting Championship as its driving properties in India. It also has FA Cup and NBA to complement its key properties in addition to international football friendlies.

MUMBAI: Travel books may tell you what to do on a trip but National geographic channel?s show, ?Banged Up Abroad?, aims to offer a guide on what not to do when travelling abroad.

The new season of the show kicks off on 20 August at 10 pm.

So what are these ?don?t dos?? These include falling, in love with a married woman in Philippines, revealing sexual preferences in Saudi Arabia and offering to help business men in Argentina transfer Gold.

The infotainment broadcaster will showcase first- hand accounts of survivors who escape their self inflicted doom in a foreign land.

Banged up Abroad will tell tales from countries around the world like Saudi Arabia, Spain, Argentina, Tokyo, Iraq and Columbia.

Viewers can watch how an innocent Iraqi soldier is forced to switch lives with the evil son of Saddam Hussain. Practically aping his identity, he escapes several assassination attempts until he finds himself in a situation where he has to choose between death and escape.

In another scandalous scenario, a student nurse and crack addict makes a daring escape by hitchhiking and swimming across an international border only to turn herself over to authorities in England.

?Banged Up Abroad? sheds light on the spirit of survival when caught in situations caused by an error in judgment.
 

NEW DELHI: Factual entertainment network Discovery has launched in India its kids channel, Discovery Kids, to fight in a genre that is struggling to push up revenues amidst strong competition.

Discovery?s eighth channel in India will be in three languages ? English, Hindi, and Tamil. Discovery Kids is priced at Rs 13.75 in analogue and a little over Rs 6 in digital.

Discovery General Manager (South Asia) Rahul Johri said that the channel was aimed at children between 4 and 11 years from amongst the 370 million children under 14 years of age.

Most of the programmes on the channel are in animation but some are in live action. Some of the shows are aimed at children aged between four to six years. The mid-morning is reserved for these young ones, while the other programmes will be aired later in the evening.

Discovery Kids is already running in Latin America and in the Asia Pacific region from the Philippines, but the Indian channel will have several indigenously produced programmes.

Johri said research had shown parents wanted a kids channel that had programming they could trust. Hence, the tagline ?Ignite your imagination?.

Johri told that the channel is presently available only on Videocon D2H and Dish TV among the DTH platforms, but will shortly be available on other platforms too.

While pointing out that the channel will not take advertising immediately but will do so within a month or so, he did not agree that there was a slowdown in advertising. ?In any case, we are here for a long haul?, he added. He felt that experience from the other Discovery channels had shown that it was a healthy market.

Johri said that the channel would use all its usual methods for advertising the new channel, not only on its own channels but on others as well. However, he refused to divulge any figures about the advertising budget.

Positioned as a factual channel, Discovery Kids has no plans at present to take fictional stories. However, he did not rule out taking tales from the Panchtantra since they were moral in nature.

The research had covered focused groups in all the major cities. ?Discovery Kids will offer Indian children an entertaining way to satisfy their natural curiosity and promises to ignite their imagination through stimulating programming. It will form the bedrock for development of their social, cognitive, emotional and personal skills. The channel will usher in a new wave of kids? entertainment in India ? one which will have them engaged and their parents satisfied,? he said.

The channel will have some shared content from the Latin American or Asia Pacific channels but will also have some indigenous stories. Johri said some of the animation was also being done in India. The channel will be working on more Indian shows in the near future.

Discovery Kids website will launch next week. Discovery already runs the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, TLC, Discovery Turbo, Discovery Science, Discovery HD, and Discovery Tamil Nadu.

The channel will cover a variety of programming ranging from iconic global content to multiple India-themed series. Committed to offer a comprehensive viewing experience and cater to diverse demands of Indian kids, the programming formats will include highest-quality animation and engaging live action series under multiple genres such as adventure, mythology, nature, history and science.

The core values of Discovery Kids include playful (by stimulating learning and imagination in a fun and innovative way), smart (by giving creative surprises for enquiring minds), transformative (by providing an immersive world that sparks wonder and curiosity) and learning (by creating a trusting and engaging environment).

Discovery Kids? programming slate features fun, enriching and entertaining programmes such as Kim, Rudyard Kipling?s famous hero; Adiboo Adventure (unveils all the puzzling questions that can bother a kid?s mind); and The Legend of Enyo (takes kids on a spectacular journey of fantasy, fun and wild adventure); and Gali Cricket that takes on a whole new exciting and colourful avatar in the unique animation series Howzzatt.