Taj Television Ltd will launch its 24 hour Sports Entertainment channel – Ten Sports – in the Middle East on 1st August 2003.
Broadcast from Dubai, Ten Sports was first launched in South Asia on April 1st 2002, and will now also be seen on the Arab Digital Distribution and E-Vision platforms.
Ten Sports is India and Pakistan’s number one sports channel, offering its viewers a distinctive blend of sports entertainment programs twenty-four hours a day, including cricket, football, hockey, motor sport and tennis. The channel recently announced the acquisition of exclusive rights in both Asia and the Middle East to all cricket played in the West Indies, adding to its bouquet of exclusive cricket rights from Sharjah, Sri Lanka and Morocco.
Chris McDonald, CEO of Taj Television, stated ‘We are very pleased to launch Ten Sports into the Middle East. The region is home to many dynamic and growing economies, and the television industry is a direct beneficiary of that growth’. McDonald added ‘We are also very happy to have entered into a long term carriage agreement with the Middle East’s leading pay television platform, Arab Digital Distribution. ADD’s excellence in aggregating and marketing television channels, together with the tremendous product on Ten Sports, points to a very bright future indeed’.
The Middle East beam of the channel will begin with exclusive live coverage of the Champions Trophy hockey (featuring both India and Pakistan) live from Amstelveen in the Netherlands from August 16 – 24.
August will also see, for the first time in the Gulf, highlights of the recent Cherry Blossom Sharjah Cup and the Bank Alfalah Cup from Sri Lanka. In coming months, there will be extensive cricket coverage on the channel including India’s home series against Australia and New Zealand, Sri Lanka’s home series against England and Australia, the Sharjah Cup and England’s tour of the West Indies.
Apart from this there will be regular/weekly shows like Cricket Classics, Gillette World of Sports, Indoor Cricket World Cup, One on One with Raageshwari, Ian Healy on Wicketkeeping, Sharjah Greats, Speed, Western Union Football Show and Superfund World Series.
Ten Sports is available to subscribers on the Pehla silver, Pehla gold, Firstnet silver and Firstnet gold packages and on ePehla Silver, ePehla Gold, efirstNet Sports & eFirstNet Gold on ADD, and also on E-Vision. The channel will be available to viewers in the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and Kuwait as well as existing viewers in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal & the Maldives.
Established in January 2001, Taj Television is broadcast from Dubai Media City and maintains 5 offices across the sub-continent. Taj TV’s parent, Bukhatir Investments Limited, is one of the most successful conglomerates in the UAE, with interests in banking, construction, real estate, trading, information technology, cricket and television.
For more details contact:
Peter Hutton, Ten Sports
Tel: 00 971 4 391 9505
E-mail: huttonp@tajtv.com