Turner International on Wednesday joined hands with Hollywood's leading studio Warner Brothers to launch a news 24-hour English Entertainment channel in India.
Turner International on Wednesday joined hands with Hollywood's leading studio Warner Brothers to launch a news 24-hour English Entertainment channel in India, its top revenue market in Asia Pacific region.
This is the second entertainment channel from the Turner International in March after it launched Hindi 24-hour channel Real earlier this month. Turner International, which already has a bouque of channels in India -- ZEE Turner, CNN-IBN, Real and HBO -- will position this new offering WB as a new Warner-branded channel for India featuring blockbuster motion pictures and hit television series. It will be available in India from
March 15, 2009.
"The channel will showcase programming licensed from Warner Brothers International Television Distribution (WBITD). Together with HBO, WB expands Turner's English entertainment package in India. It will be distributed by Zee-Turner and will be available on both DTH, and Cable and Satellite platforms", Turner Broadcasting System Asia Pacific Inc president Steve Marcopoto said in a conference.
Warner Brothers International Television Jeffrey R Schlesinger President said, "India is an important growth market. But it will take quite a while for India to be our fastest growth market than it is now."
"Western Europe is the biggest market for us where licensing programme, advertising and channel on ground revenues are significantly high. India would eventually be a
bigger market," he observed, adding WB targets the upscale/affluent Indian audience with an appetite for Hollywood's best.
Asked if Warner Brothers would move jobs to India to cut costs, Schlesinger said, "Every company has to operate efficiently. We are looking to keep costs under control while looking to grow new businesses as well."
He did not disclose the investment figures. In India, Turner also offers Cartoon Network & POGO, India's leading kids channels. A division of Time Warner, Turner International India is the arm of Turner Broadcasting System Inc (TBS) that manages
the sales and marketing of Turners' news and entertainment services in India and South Asia.
Warner Brothers International Television Distribution is one of the world's largest distributors of feature films, television programmes and animation to the international
television marketplace. It licenses some 50,000 hours of programming.
The TV industry is poised for an annual growth of 22 per cent. The number of private TV channels uplinking from India has increased from 131 at the end of 2004 to 376 at present out, of which 200 are news and current affairs channels, according to I&B Ministry estimates.
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