News Corp’s Asian broadcaster, Star, has bought into the south Indian demographic, forming a joint venture with Jupiter Entertainment Ventures which will take over Jupiter’s array of southern-focused channels.


Under the terms of the agreement, Star Jupiter Entertainment TV Ltd (Star Jupiter) will become the majority shareholder of Jupiter’s Asianet Communications. Asianet currently broadcasts channels in various languages including Suvarna in the Kannada language, Sitara in Telugu and Asianet and Asianet Plus in Malayalam. Star’s own Tamil-language general entertainment channel, Vijay, will also come under Star Jupiter.

And there will be more – the joint venture “is expected to make additional investments towards developing and launching new channels in South India in the coming months,” the companies said in a statement. Star India’s CEO Uday Shankar called south India “the next big growth story for Indian television”.

Paul Aiello, CEO of STAR, said: “This is a game changing partnership for Star. It allows us to connect deeply with the rapidly growing South Indian audience by providing compelling television that truly resonates with the viewers there. And by adding the South Indian channels to our extensive portfolio of Hindi and regional language channels, Star takes a big step towards becoming a truly national broadcaster in India.”
The move takes Star into direct competition with Sun TV, the southern-focused broadcaster which also operates the Sun Direct DTH platform.

Source: Rapid TV News 2008

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