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Star eyes regional TV venture with Asianet
Mumbai: With a view to tighten its grip in the regional space, Star India is close to form a joint venture (JV) with Kerala based television broadcaster Asianet to launch a bouquet of regional channels, reported Business Standard.
The deal comes after the failure of Star?s joint venture with Ekta Kapur-controlled Balaji Telefilms to operate regional channels last April.
Asianet operates three Malayalam television channels - Asianet, Asianet Plus and Asianet News. Last year the company launched a Kannada channel called Asianet Suvarna.
Sources at Star said the broadcaster will hold a majority stake in the joint venture. As part of the deal, the Malayalam entertainment channel will come under the joint venture, but it is not clear whether the news channel will be a part of the JV.
Sources said that Star is looking at leveraging Asianet?s strong regional presence and its distribution network (it reaches out to around 60 countries across the globe).
Star wanted to foray into regional TV for a while now and has a Tamil channel, Star Vijay. Its 51:49 joint venture with Balaji was set up to launch general entertainment channels in Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam in two to three years. Balaji would produce exclusive content for these channels.
Sources said the Balaji agreement will have to be terminated before Star signs with Asianet because under the terms of the former neither signatory can form a joint venture with a third party.
Source: IANS
Source: IANS
