STAR TV
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- For the Turkish television channel, see Star TV.
STAR (Satellite Television for Asian Region) is an Asian TV service owned by the News Corporation. It is based in Hong Kong, but there are also programming offices in India and Australia, as well as in the rest regions in Asia.
According to the STAR website, their services has more than 300 million viewers in 53 countries and is watched by approximately 100 million viewers every day.
STAR's revenues have jumped from $220 million in 2003 to $245 million in 2004. STAR has emerged as India's second-largest media company after "Bennett, Coleman & Co" which publisher of Times-Of-India. STAR's main revenues come from India, with 80% of Indian viewers watching Star Channel.
The Economist has suggested that News Corporation may eventually merge STAR with BSkyB and DirecTV (its United Kingdom and United States satellite businesses) to form a global satellite TV company.
History
STAR was set up in 1990 by Hutchison Whampoa, with broadcasts commencing in 1991. In 1993 Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation purchased 63.6% of STAR for over $500 million, followed by the purchase of the remaining 34.6% in July 1995.
In 1994 STAR removed BBC World from the network following demands from the government of the People's Republic of China. It is alleged that the PRC government was unhappy with BBC coverage and threatened to block Star TV in the huge mainland Chinese market if the BBC was not withdrawn. [1] [2] [3]
Channels provided
- Channel V - A bouquet of Asia's top Music Television Channels. Its main international hub used to be in Hong Kong but has since relocated to Malaysia. There are local Channel V channels such as Channel V India, Channel V China, Channel V Australia and Channel V Thailand .
- The Channel V Philippines was launched through Star TV and the GMA Network.
- STAR World - Popular U.S. and British entertainment programming broadcast to Asia.
- STAR Movies - One of the most popular English movie channels in this region.
- STAR Sports - a sports channel, devoted to different sporting events, such as boxing, cricket, auto racing, golf, and many more. Associated with ESPN in Asia. Schedule does not include baseball or rugby.
- STAR Chinese - Mandarin General Entertainment Channel in Taiwan
- STAR Chinese Movies - Cantonese movie channel tailor made for Hong Kong
- STAR Plus - India's one of the popular Hindi General Entertainment Channel.
- Star One - Niche Hindi General Entertainment Channel
- STAR Gold - Hindi Movie Channel
- STAR Utsav - in Hindi.Repeating older programs from STAR PLUS
- STAR News - 24-hour Hindi News Channel.
- STAR Vijay - in Tamil.
- Xing Kong - Mandarin General Entertainment Channel
- Phoenix Chinese Channel - International Mandarin-language Entertainment Channel
- Phoenix Infonews - 24-hour Mandarin News Channel
- Phoenix Movies Channel - Movie Channel in Mainland China
- Adventure One - 24 hour adventure programming
- National Geographic Channel
- The History Channel
- ESPN
- Fox News
- Sky News
- Granada UKTV - British entertainment from Granada now only available on STAR Select in the Middle East, dropped from the line-up in the rest of Asia in 2002