MUMBAI: ESPN Star Sports (ESS), Asia‘s leading sports broadcast network, has signed new carriage deals for its cricket dedicated channel Star Cricket in the Philippines and Indonesia, highlighting its expanding footprint beyond traditional cricket markets.

In addition, with a new carriage deal for Star Cricket recently secured in Indonesia, cricket fans across the country can anticipate the channel to being available very soon.

Launched in 2007 in the Indian sub-continent, Star Cricket has continued to expand in non-traditional cricket markets over the years with presence in South East Asian markets such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Papua New Guinea, the Maldives and now the Philippines.

ESS also successfully launched Star Cricket HD in July last year in key markets across Asia such as India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Singapore.

ESPN Star Sports MD Peter Hutton said, "We‘re delighted to be able to help the ICC grow the game worldwide, and to see Star Cricket increase its popularity across Asia."

Star Cricket features international cricket events across all formats of the game and its line-up of cricket properties includes the marquee International Cricket Council (ICC) events, international and domestic cricket from India, Australia and England and Champions League Twenty20.

In addition, it also showcased the inaugural edition of the Sri Lankan Premier League and the Bangladesh Premier League earlier this year.

MUMBAI: Setanta Sports, the international sports broadcaster, has agreed a multi-year deal to distribute its exclusive rugby programming on Multi Screen Media?s sports channel Sony Six.

Sony Six will broadcast live coverage of the RBS Six Nations, Super Rugby and Rugby Championship (formerly Tri Nations) as well as showing Setanta?s flagship rugby programme: The Breakdown.

"We are delighted to work with Sony SIX to bring our exclusive rugby programming to India. Our goal is to achieve the greatest possible exposure of rugby across the whole of Asia," said Setanta Sports International MD Roger Hall.

Setanta Sports has extensive distribution for its channel and programming in Asia with deals in Thailand (with TrueVisions), Hong Kong (with Now TV and Hong Kong Broadband), Malaysia and Brunei (with Astro), Singapore (with StarHub and SingTel mio TV), Taiwan (with Dish HD), the Philippines (with SKYcable) and Sri Lanka (with Dialog TV).

Sony Six has Indian Premier League and Ultimate Fighting Championship as its driving properties in India. It also has FA Cup and NBA to complement its key properties in addition to international football friendlies.

MUMBAI: Travel books may tell you what to do on a trip but National geographic channel?s show, ?Banged Up Abroad?, aims to offer a guide on what not to do when travelling abroad.

The new season of the show kicks off on 20 August at 10 pm.

So what are these ?don?t dos?? These include falling, in love with a married woman in Philippines, revealing sexual preferences in Saudi Arabia and offering to help business men in Argentina transfer Gold.

The infotainment broadcaster will showcase first- hand accounts of survivors who escape their self inflicted doom in a foreign land.

Banged up Abroad will tell tales from countries around the world like Saudi Arabia, Spain, Argentina, Tokyo, Iraq and Columbia.

Viewers can watch how an innocent Iraqi soldier is forced to switch lives with the evil son of Saddam Hussain. Practically aping his identity, he escapes several assassination attempts until he finds himself in a situation where he has to choose between death and escape.

In another scandalous scenario, a student nurse and crack addict makes a daring escape by hitchhiking and swimming across an international border only to turn herself over to authorities in England.

?Banged Up Abroad? sheds light on the spirit of survival when caught in situations caused by an error in judgment.