STAR Eyes North American Expansion

HONG KONG/LOS ANGELES, October 17: STAR is looking to boost
the distribution of its Hindi- and Mandarin-language programming in North America
with the opening of a sales office in Los Angeles.

The new office will be headed up by David Wisnia as VP of
distribution and sales. Wisnia comes to STAR following nearly eight years with
Fox Sports International, including four years with Fuel TV. He is charged with
expanding the reach of four STAR channels that are already available in the
U.S. on DIRECTV: STAR India Plus, with comedy, drama and entertainment
programming; the Hindi-language entertainment channel STAR One; STAR India News
and the Tamil-language Vijay. STAR will also market the movie channel STAR
Gold, as well as the Mandarin-language offerings STAR Chinese Channel and
Channel [V]. STAR’s Hong Kong-based COO Laureen Ong is overseeing the company’s
expansion efforts in the U.S. She noted: “Asians, particularly those of Indian
and Chinese descent, represent the largest growing ethnic group in the United
States after Hispanics. We know the U.S. demand for Indian and Chinese
programming is growing, and STAR is well positioned to offer thousands of hours
of quality, original programming to this under-served market.”

STAR broadcasts more than 40 Asian-language channels to 300
million viewers worldwide and also produces over 10,000 hours of Indian- and
Chinese-language programming per year.

—By Mansha Daswani