MUMBAI: South Asian broadcaster Asian Television Network (ATN) has won exclusive Canadian rights for the India Pakistan Cricket Series 2004, which gets off in right earnest Saturday.

ATN international limited announced it has bagged the exclusive Canadian rights to all forms of video and broadcast distribution live and delayed basis for the upcoming India - Pakistan cricket series. The rights also include television, wireless and all forms of alternative distribution, excluding the Internet, without limitation.

The cricket series consisting of five one day Internationals (ODIs) and three test matches for a total of 20 days, commences tomorrow on 12 March and goes on till 17 April 2004, says a company release.

"We hope this will be bigger than the last world cup and we are absolutely proud to bring this to cricket fans across Canada. We will make it available live on a pay per view basis to all Canadians through cable and Star Choice via Viewer's Choice and through Bell Express VU Pay Per View. One hour highlights will be shown exclusively on the ATN channel, " says ATN president and CEO Shan Chandrasekar.

Besides the Indo-Pak cricket series, ATN announced that it has an option to acquire the exclusive Canadian rights from ARYdigital to broadcast all Pakistani home matches vs India, England, Sri Lanka, Australia, Zimbabwe, West Indies and South Africa through 2008.

It was for the 1987 World Cup that ATN first beamed cricket in Canada and has since been a regular television distributor of the game in Canada.

ATN has programming alliances with leading South Asian broadcasters such as Zee TV, B4U, Sony Entertainment Television Asia, Alpha Punjabi and ARY Digital TV. It has won additional digital licenses from the Canadian Radio Television and Telecommunication Commission (CRTC) for broadcasting to Canada's multicultural communities, adds the release.