You FM 95.3 launches 5th December

Sri Lanka's newest radio station "You FM" which is actually a relaunch of Max Radio will officially launch on 5th December according to it's website http://www.youfm.lk/ . The station will be bilingual and broadcast a mix of English & Sinhala language programming/music and catering for those who enjoy music from both languages. The station has relocated its  broadcast base to Dickman's road from Nugegoda.

The date of relaunching Max TV as You TV is not known yet but it is likely that they too will commence on the said date. Even though You TV is already on-air, it's programming is limited to France24 broadcasts and only after it's official launch will it carry other entertainment programmes.

You TV may broadcast a mixture of English/Sinhala programming if they follow the model adopted by You FM.

Max TV relaunches as You TV

English Language channel Max TV under went a soft relaunch as "You TV". The relaunch took place over the CHOGM weekend. The channel that carried "Al Jazeera" for the a major part of the day is now carrying "France 24", a 24X7 English news channel that as the name suggests has its roots in France.

Ever since its relaunch the channel hasn't carried any sort of Entertainment programming unlike Max TV before. So far it has been carrying only France 24 and advertising products marketed by parent company. If this channel is to survive then it will not do so under this type of model. The same needs to be said of ETV & Siyatha, ETV is carrying CNA and some music programmes at best with nothing else, Siyatha is carrying only music. The long term viability of these companies is questionable at most. A rebranding of ETV is on the cards but it is taking much longer than expected. It might take place towards the end of this month or early december to take advantage of the festivities. Siyatha seems to be struggling after a failed attempt of leasing the frequency out to Asset Broadcasting to launch Neth TV.

With no website, facebook page and with the Max TV wikipedia page being deleted, its not clear on what the plans the parent company MGM-R organisation has for this television station.

Please keep us updated on the latest on this channel as the days progress.

"NTV" relaunches as "ntv"

The English language television channel known as "NTV" which commenced operations a few years ago has been relaunched just prior to the CHOGM last weekend. The channel now know as well "ntv", has had a refreshed logo which frankly looks hideous when compared to the previous one.

This channel orginally started off as an English one and then was reduced to just a couple of hours per day and for the rest of the day "Rupavahini" was being broadcast on this frequency. Frankly it looked more like this channel would die a natural death in a couple of months. However with the relaunch it just might survive just a bit longer. It's quite unclear as to what this channel will carry, over the weekend it was carrying programmes related to the CHOGM summit as were all the other SLRC channels and last evening some old "Discovery Channel" content. Judging by the content that has been running as of now, it seems that the channel will carry more "national" programmes in the English language. The website www.ntv.lk lists a couple of Chinese movies but with no detailed schedule.

The coverage of this channel seems to have improved with the relaunch but by only that much.

Stop violating the privacy of promo winners!

It's become a habit on local television & radio media to announce the winners address if one wins some sort of promo. This is happening for quite some time with no regard for individuals privacy. Hiru TV has been the latest culprit where they visit peoples houses and give then cash for watching their programmes and require those poor unsuspecting people to reveal their home address for the whole of Sri Lanka to hear.

This will result in the winners of promo's to become the target of pranksters and will inevitably result in some sort of tragedy if this unethical blatant violation of privacy goes unchecked by the authorities. We hope the authorities take immediate steps to prevent media institutions from revealing peoples addresses on air. To give a general idea of where the winner is located, the area of residence can be revealed but the revealing of the full address including the house no, street name, etc is not required. Sometimes telephone numbers are revealed.

We have seen this happen on Hiru TV very often as of late and a number of others too from time to time.

We hope the management of Hiru TV take steps to immediately stop the revealing of addresses and other media take steps not to do this in the future. As far as we know all of the local media institutions have done this from time to time but at the moment Hiru TV is taking it to a whole new level by doing this regularly for all their promo winners.

Radio & TV stations beware, you are responsible for this violation of privacy and if tragedy is to befall your  promo winners then you are responsible and the we urge the authorities to take immediate action against this and cancel the licenses of those who don't comply.

Star Sports relaunches, ESPN bits adieu until after 2018

With effect from midnight ESPN bit adieu to the subcontinent and has left the entire asian region and will be in exile for a period of at least 5 years or more. The channel owned by Disney had formed a JV with Star Sports and operated as ESPN Star Sports for more than a decade or so. According to the terms of JV, it would mean that ESPN will only be allowed to return to Asia again after a period of 5 years which would put a probable return date after 2018 & somewhere in the next decade.

Although it was expected that ESPN will be replaced by Fox Sports as was the rest of Asia, it was sadly not to be so, due to the transfer of the subcontinent sports business Star Singapore to Star India, this resulted in an "Indian-ization" of the business just as such when Sri Lanka lost Star Movies Asia and was given a lower grade Star Movies India.

From the early hours of this morning the following changes came into affect on the former ESPN Star Sports, not only did the logo change, which is very quite similar to the Star logo of decades gone by. The logo is similar to the newer Star logo that is widely in use in the rest of Asia, but is only up to now being used by Star Plus India.

• Star Sports 1 - formerly Star Sports.
• Star Sports 2 - remains the same.
• Star Sports 3 - formerly Star Cricket carrying mainly Hindi programming plus Indian local content.
• Star Sports 4 - formerly ESPN, ** now dual language.

• Star Sports HD 1 - formerly Star Cricket HD.
• Star Sports HD 2 - formerly ESPN HD.

By looking at the schedule on www.starsports.com it seems that Star Sports 1 & Star Sports HD 1 will carry the same content one in HD and the other SD, whilst Star Sports 4 & Star Sports HD 2 will do the same. However this will change specially when there are multiple "live" telecasts to be carried broadcast at the same time specially during a time such as the 2016 Summer Olympic Games for which Star Sports holds the exclusive rights in this region. Now with 6 channels they can carry more events live too.

Now those local pay television companies namely Dialog TV, PEO TV & LBN Cable TV should add Star Sports 2 immediately owing to conversion of the former Star Cricket to Hindi, or temporarily replace Star Sports 3 (formerly Star Cricket) with Star Sports 2 and add Star Sports 3 ASAP, to avoid subscribers from missing out on "live" content on Star Sports 3 which even though is mainly Hindi, may carry English content in the event of multiple "live" events.

Further details about the channels can be obtained at Star Sports FAQ's.

** Post updated on 6th Nov 2013 at 11:30am

ESPN Star Sports to undergo major changes...

Subcontinent feeds of sports channels ESPN Star Sports which are now managed by Star TV in India, are to undergo major changes from 6th Nov 2013. ESPN exited the joint venture last year resulting in the subsequent rebranding of ESPN as "Fox Sports" in Asia. After months of deliberations it has been decided that ESPN will be rebranded under the Star Sports brand in the subcontinent instead of Fox Sports as the rest of Asia.

As per the rebranding exercise, India is rumored to get a dedicated Hindi Sports channel which will also concentrate mainly on Indian domestic sports.

Given below is a quick round of how the channel rebranding exercise will take place

• Star Sports will become "Star Sports 1" - will showcase mainly premier cricket events.
• Star Sports 2 will remain as "Star Sports 2" - will showcase mainly premier football events, dual language feed.
• Star Cricket will become "Star Sports 3" - will showcase largely Hindi content & Indian domestic properties and will also be home to cricket involving India.
• ESPN will become "Star Sports 4" - will showcase international sports content such as F1, Baseball, etc.

• Star Cricket HD will become "Star Sports HD 1" - will mainly showcase HD cricket & football.
• ESPN HD will become "Star Sports HD 2" - will showcase HD football, F1 & Indian domestic content.

The above is just a summary of what is expected, however it's quite clear that there will be changes to the above from time-to-time since this largely depends on the "live" properties that will be carried simultaneously. The exclusive "live" rights for the 2016 Summer Olympic games are with Star Sports and its clear that all 6 channels will the carry games depending on the number of events taking place simultaneously. At the moment Star Sports, ESPN, ESPN HD & Star Cricket are on local pay television platforms meaning that after the rebranding exercise it will be "Star Sports 1", "Star Sports 4", "Star Sports HD 2" & "Star Sports 3" that will be the channels available on local platforms. 

Star Sports 3 is rumored to be mainly Hindi, so the most obvious choice for local operators will be to swap "Star Sports 3" with "Star Sports 2", however in the long run it would mean that content on Star Sports 3 will be missed by locals since it will be mainly Hindi but not 24 hours Hindi and depending on how many "live" properties are simultaneously being carried "live", it highly likely that English content will be available on Star Sports 3 too.

So the best option would be for local operators to carry all 4 SD Star Channels & HD enabled operators to carry all 6 ensuring that locals enjoy the best of sports from Star Sports.

Source - Television Post: Star to have Hindi sports channel; Star Sports to become mother brand