StarHub ups the ante in Singapore's pay-TV market with four new channels

1 October 2007

Singapore- Cable TV operator StarHub raised its stakes in the Singapore pay-TV battle against IPTV operator SingTel by launching four new channels, Neo Sports, Golf Channel, Star Gold and TVB Classic Channel, to boost its offerings to 111 channels and 40 on-demand channels by Oct. 4. This follows the launch of the History Channel, Crime & Investigation Network and StarHub's in-house Malay-language channel Sensasi in August.
Star Gold is a 24-hour Hindi Movie channel featuring a mix of Bollywood blockbusters for families. Singapore is the first market outside India, Pakistan and the Middle East to access Star Gold, available to StarHub Digital Cable customers for a monthly subscription fee of $S8.56 ($US5.70).
TVB Classic Channel provides classic TVB dramas which feature Hong Kong veteran stars in earlier days of their acting careers. It's bundled with the Chinese Plus II group of nine Chinese channels at no extra cost.
Neo Sports is a 24-hour cricket channel featuring all home matches of the Indian and Bangladeshi cricket teams, as well as Indian domestic tournaments, plus interviews with top cricketers, and analysis. Neo Sports will complement StarHub's Cricket Channel, which offers international live International Cricket Council (ICC) matches and home matches by Australian and English teams. Neo Sports and Cricket Channel will be bundled as the new Cricket Group for a monthly subscription of $21.40, but is available until the end of March 2008 at a discounted price of $17.82.
The Golf Channel features worldwide tournaments including news, instructional and original productions. It's available at no additional cost to all Sports Group customers using the digital set-top box, HubStation or HD set-top box. Golf Channel adds to the seven Sports Group channels which include ESPN, Football Channel, Goal TV 1, Goal TV 2, STAR Sports, SuperSports and SuperSports Plus.
In addition, StarHub has acquired broadcast rights for the current season of the US National Football League (NFL) to show two live NFL games each week and the weekly magazine NFL Game Day, which will be aired on Goal TV 1 and Goal TV 2 from September 2007 to January 2008.