ESPN's SportsCentre to be launched in Mandarin, English in August
in rest of Asia
(Posted on 15 June, 7:00 pm)
Daily sports news programming during prime time is not proving
as difficult as some feared for ESPN-Star Sports (ESS). Sportsline
on Star Sports and the Hindi-language SportsCenter have both found
audiences despite being pitted against daily soaps, a company
release states.
Following on the success of SportsCenter, which debuted in
March in India, the programme will be launched in Mandarin and
English across the rest of Asia and China starting August.
Nearly 30 million people have tuned in to Star Sports to watch
Sportsline since its launch last September, while close on 10
million watched ESPN's Hindi-language SportsCenter in just its
first nine weeks of broadcast, the release says.
According to ESS managing director Rik Dovey, these figures
are encouraging. "The 10 PM time slot is tough with our bulletins
up against the top local serials and soap operas, so we are pleased
to be carving out an audience for our programmes.
Sportsline, India's first live half-hour sports news programme,
offers viewers international sports news from an Indian perspective,
together with comprehensive coverage of domestic sporting events.
Sportsline has proved a good example of interactivity too as
large numbers of Indian viewers log onto the company's website,
espnstar.com, to participate in "Your Shout", an online extension
of the programme. More than 10,000 people have responded to the
weekly poll that invites viewers to vote on issues raised in the
on-air programme.
SportsCenter on ESPN has performed well too since it debuted
in India in March this year, presented in Hindi by Darain Shahidi.
Within nine weeks of the India launch, 24 per cent of the cable
audience had tuned in to SportsCenter. Again, the figures for
upscale males were prominent, with 26 per cent of this universe
having watched the programme. The information has been collated
from market research agency ORG-Marg's Intam data, the release
says.
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