MUMBAI: Out-going Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia (Casbaa) CEO Simon Twiston Davies has been honoured with the annual Casbaa Chairman?s Award during the final day of the Casbaa Convention 2012 in Hong Kong.

Twiston Davies will step down from his current role on December 31st and will be succeeded by a new management team lead by in-coming CEO Christopher Slaughter.

Casbaa chairman Marcel Fenez said, "Under Twiston Davies? management Casbaa has become a central industry voice for the multichannel TV industry across 18 Asia Pacific markets running from Japan to Pakistan; China to Australasia and beyond".

"Most importantly, Casbaa has become the ?Go To? industry body in Asia if you are a serious multichannel TV player, or want to be one. That is Twiston Davies? most notable contribution."

According to Fenez, since taking up his appointment in 2000, Twiston Davies worked tirelessly to emphasise the value of the multichannel TV industry while more than doubling the number of participating Casbaa companies to the 130 Members of the Association of today.

Twiston Davies said that he was greatly honoured by the Award which was as much a tribute to the support of the CASBAA Membership since 2000 as it was to successive Executive Office teams.

MUMBAI: BBC World News will be airing a documentary on 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai?s life. She recently made the news when members of the Taliban shot her while on her way to school. She is currently in Britain where she?ll receive specialist medical treatment.

In 2009, Yousafzai wrote an anonymous blog for the BBC about life under the Taliban in her home city of Mingora in Pakistan?s Swat Valley. The same year New York Times journalist and film-maker Adam Ellick began to make a film about Yousafzai and her family. The documentary followed her struggle to keep up her education amid Taliban attempts to close all girls? schools in the area and when it was broadcast three years ago on The New York Times? website, it brought Yousafzai to the world?s attention.

MUMBAI: Zee Entertainment Enterprise Limited?s sports broadcasting network Ten Sports has inked a five-year broadcast rights agreement with Elite Football League of India (EFLI) till 2016 that will see the sportscaster televising approximately 370 matches.

Ten has acquired broadcast rights across cable & satellite, terrestrial, IPTV, HITS, DTH, Mobile, Internet and other distribution platforms.

The broadcaster has acquired rights for India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Maldives, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Europe, US, Caribbean, Australia & New Zealand, South Africa, Middle East, Asia including South East Asia and will try and distribute the EFLI games in all of these Markets.

Zee Sports Business CEO Atul Pande said, "We are delighted to partner with Elite Football League of India, the first professional American football league in India. We are looking forward for high decibel games with loads of excitement and passion."

Ten will televise four matches per week on Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday through its broadcast channels Ten Sports and Ten Action.

In late 2012, there will be ten teams located in various cities across India, one in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and one in an unannounced city in Bangladesh, the EFLI said.

The first season of EFLI will kick start in September with eight teams including five from India, two from Sri Lanka and one from Pakistan. They will compete in American-style football.

MUMBAI: Broadcasting major Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (Zeel) expects to cut down its sports losses this fiscal to Rs 700 million as subscription revenues are showing strong growth trends.

?The distribution revenues should see an upside. International syndication, including Pakistan and the Middle East, should look up. The cricketing lineup is also reasonable. There could also the possibility of a series between India and Pakistan in the fiscal,? a source said.

The live telecast of cricket properties in FY?13 include series like Sri Lanka-England and West Indies-Australia (April 2012); Sri Lanka-Pakistan (May-June); West Indies-New Zealand and Sri Lanka-India (July-August); Zimbabwe-Bangladesh (August-September); Zimbabwe-Pakistan and Sri Lanka-New Zealand (November-December); South Africa-New Zealand (December 2012-January 2013); and South Africa-Pakistan , Sri Lanka-Bangladesh and West Indies-Zimbabwe (February-March 2013).

The prime revenue from cricket will be from the India-Sri Lanka series. The company is targeting ad revenue of Rs800 million from the series. There is only one India-playing series this fiscal.

A weakening rupee , though, remains a concern. The weakening of the rupee had upset Zeel?s early guidance of capping sports losses at Rs 1 billion in the previous fiscal. Hit by forex losses to the tune of Rs 270-Rs 280 million, the company ended FY?12 with a loss of Rs 1.48 billion from its sports broadcasting business on a revenue of Rs 3.93 billion.

?Ten Sports (the sports broadcasting arm of Zeel) has seen a 13 per cent increase in content cost due to the softening of the Indian currency. When the content deals were signed, the rupee was around Rs 44 to a dollar,? a source said.

For the fiscal ended March 2011, Zeel?s sports losses stood at Rs 2.08 billion on a revenue of Rs 4.4 billion.