Star India gears up to launch regional sports channels


Details

Rebecca Hawkes

| 12 February 2016




21st Century Fox-owned broadcaster Star TV has been awarded ten new licences to launch regional sports channels across India.


India’s Ministry of Information & Broadcasting has given operational approval for the channels Star Sports Marathi, Star Sports Bengali, Star Sports Malayalam, Star Sports Tamil, and Star Sports Telugu in both standard and high definition (HD).

Currently, the pay-TV network has four standard definition (SD) sports channels and four HD sports channels, with one – Star Sports 3 – broadcasting in Hindi.

Regional feeds of some of its sporting properties are carried on Star’s regional movie channels or general entertainment channels, but this move will allow the broadcaster to offer viewers a far larger sports portfolio in a number of regional languages.

Star India subsidiary Vijay Television has also received a licence to uplink television channels under the name Vijay HD.

The total number of licensed private satellite TV channels in India stood at 857 as of 31 January 2016, comprising 399 news and current affairs channels and 458 non-news channels.