ESPN Star Sports, which claims to reach over 136 million households, has announced the signing of an agreement with Sport4cast. It is a company which, among other things, looks after data and analyses different sports. It also functions as a design company. The espnstar.com site will leverage the expertise of the company in these areas. The site is both English and Chinese. The sports broadcaster claims to be available in over 65 countries throughout Asia through the ESPN Star Asia3 satellite network.
The site had been relaunched in August and this latest initiative is a step towards making the site experience more interactive and exciting.

Sport4cast has designed an online service, which it will manage and host on behalf of ESPN Star Sports. Responsibilities include controlling the huge volumes of data on the sports broadcasters site. It will also continously keep track of all members and their subscriptions.

ESPN Star Sports will kick things off by incorporating the Sport4cast Interactive Premiership Football service.

Sport4cast‘s has developed a multi-platform model that suits any type of content. The company‘s design team can customise graphics, animation and data to tailor the customers needs..

Sport4cast began operations a couple of years ago as a CD based horseracing service. It gradually expanded its range of operations and today supplies Horseracing and Football services to companies all over the world, who in turn, offer them to their customers. Company data is completely encrypted and so parties seeking their services have no security fears.

The company has made a deliberate attempt to position itself in a niche area so that its data analysis and management services can be used to attract other related services within the sports industry.

Urdu Satellite entertainment channel ARY Digital which has started its test run in India recently, is all set to launch the channel by end November.
Atul Saraf, director, Live Satellite Media Ltd, which is handling distribution and marketing for the channel in India says: "We are planning to reach close to 20 million homes in the next five months." Currently, the channel is shown only on two networks. "Our target is to reach out to the Urdu speaking people in India." Initially, the channel will target the north, where Urdu is better understood.

Asked how ARY would avoid the fate that befell UTN and other Urdu channel wannabes, Saraf says the problem with other Urdu channels has been that they don‘t have enough quality programming. "We have quite a good number of quality programmes with us. We also have the rights for many Pakistani movies. Moreover, we are procuring programmes from India too." The channel has currently commissioned four serials. Seventy per cent of the programming mix is currently sourced from Pakistan, the rest is sourced from India.

The channel is a 24-hour free to air channel, with 10 hours of original programming.

Saraf brushed aside doubts on whether the heavily Pakistani programming would create any problems in India, claiming that entertainment based programmes were not likely to cause any upsets. "We are planning to come out with serials with both Indian and Pakistani actors, which will be shot in the UK and Dubai. The message that we want to send is that people don‘t have animosity against each other, it is the lack of communication and trust that has worsened relations."

ARY is planning to start its pay services after April 2002. Advertisers have not yet been approached, but Saraf does not seem worried about the marketing part.

The channel will be shifted from Pas-4 to Thaicom-3 within the next fortnight, to avoid the time lag in transmission.

ARY Digital is a television network owned by ARY, one of the largest gold manufacturers in the world, based in London. The channel was launched in August 2001. The network was formerly known as The Pakistani Channel; its name was changed when it was purchased by the ARY Group.