STAR India Channels Score Carriage on Zuku

NAIROBI: The Kenya-based Wananchi Group’s Zuku platform is set to carry four STAR India channels for East African viewers, featuring Bollywood movies, entertainment and news.

STAR Plus, Gold, News and One are to join Zuku in a one-year carriage agreement. The STAR channels will be carried on cable and DTH platforms in Kenya, expanding to Uganda and Tanzania by late 2011 and further territories in Wananchi’s reach later on in the rollout.

Hannelie Bekker, the managing director of Wananchi programming, said: “Including Hindi, Gujarathi and Punjabi orientated programming in all our channel bouquets is a key part of Wananchi’s differentiation and positioning in the market, and bolsters our offering to East African populations. There is a large population of East Africans of Indian descent, whose entertainment requirements encompass both Hollywood and Bollywood. The agreement with STAR marks a move into Bollywood programming for Wananchi.”

Sumantra Dutta, the country head for Middle East, Africa and Pakistan at STAR, added: “In our continuous quest to make our world leader STAR TV channels available across geographies, we’re proud to bring the world’s favorite Indian TV channels—STAR Plus, STAR Gold, STAR News and STAR One to Zuku subscribers. We are elated that the South Asian community in East Africa will now be able to access STAR TV content through Zuku. This industry defining move makes STAR, the first Indian broadcaster to enable global viewers to watch subtitled content, same day, globally. We look forward to continuing to work closely with Zuku to bring subscribers even more TV choice from our world leading bouquet of South Asian channels.”