ESPN Star Sports Makes Inroads into Indo-China

ESPN STAR Sports (ESS), Asia’s leading sports broadcaster recently signed its first-ever terrestrial carriage deals in Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar with national broadcasters LNTV, TV5 and Mywaddy TV respectively.

These breakthrough deals which will run for three years, include an agreement to air the English Premier League and other sports programs.

At the same time, ESS also concluded a carriage agreement with Vietnam’s terrestrial national network, VTV3. Under this arrangement, VTV 3 will broadcast in addition to the English Premier League, exclusive ESS programs such as the Asian X Games Qualifier which takes place in Malaysia in February 2002, the US X Games, the world’s richest 5-a-side international football event Tiger 5s, and the CGU Asian Bowling Tour.

Previously, ESS programming was only available in Indo-China through a combination of hotel and cable platforms, mainly to expatriates and tourists.

Rik Dovey, ESS’ Managing Director said: ‘This represents a tremendous breakthrough in the company’s distribution strategy in Indo-China, especially in the area of syndication. We have a strong line-up of premium programming on the ESS network, which is relevant to sports fans in the region.

‘As such, we’re delighted to have arrived at this broadcast agreement with all four broadcasters – LNTV, TV5, Mywaddy TV and VTV3 – as now fans will be able to experience the expert and expanded sports programming, particularly with the English Premier League.’

The passion, drama and excitement of the EPL season began on August 18, 2001, live and exclusive on ESS’ two channels, ESPN and STAR Sports. This season alone, football fans across Asia will enjoy coverage of 165 live games and over 1000 hours of EPL programming.

In addition, there is a never-before-seen line-up of support news programming seven days a week, with a comprehensive menu of pre- and post-game analyses, predictions and information – a first for English Premier League coverage in Asia. Beyond the coverage on air, there’s a series of interactive activities on the newly designed espnstar.com.

With these agreements, a potential 9.2 million viewers have been added to ESS’s distribution figures, taking it up to a total of 79 million households on ESPN and 56 million households on STAR Sports.

For further information please contact:

Stephenie David Vasko,
ESPN STAR Sports
Tel: (65) 488 6129
Email: davids@espnstar.com

Mai Tatoy
ESPN STAR Sports
Tel: (65) 488 6134
Email: tatoym@espnstar.com