SONY TO LAUNCH ON BSKYB BY 26 AUGUST

Entertainment television channel Sony Entertainment Television which has been giving market leader Zee TV sleepless nights in India is now rushing to get its act together for a 26 August launch on the BSKyB platform in the UK, according to its CEO Kunal Dasgupta. Sony is already available in around 20,000 homes in the UK through cable TV networks.

Sony is to be packaged along with Bollywood film channel B4U and offered to BSkyB subscribers. The channels will be made available to them at a combined rate of pounds sterling 12.99 for the first three months, according to Dasgupta.

He adds that Sony is to be launched in Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the West Indies and South Africa over the next few months. Zee TV already has a presence in some of these markets and other services such as Star Plus have shown interest in introducing their programming there.

Dasgupta claims that Sony is in fine fettle even with the World Cup cricket snaring a huge chunk of the revenues. "Ad revenues are up 100% in the first quarter of the new financial year," he says. "I'm looking forward to a revenue in excess of Rs 3,000 million by the time this financial year ends."

He clarifies that Sony will not be launching any more channels on its own but would do it in an alliance with other partners.