Indiantelevision.com Team

(1 April 2009 3:00 pm)

MUMBAI: AETN All Asia Networks (Aaan), a joint venture of A&E Television Networks and Astro All Asia Entertainment Networks Limited, has appointed Sony Pictures Entertainment Networks – Asia (Sprna) as regional ad sales representative across Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan for History, The Biography Channel, Crime and Investigation Network and History HD.

Aaan GM Louis Boswell said, “As our distribution matures, regional ad sales is becoming a very important part of our business. I am delighted that one of the best advertising sales organisations in the region will be representing us, and we look forward to a great partnership in the years ahead.”

Spena senior VP, GM Ricky Ow says, "This is a first-of-its-kind partnership in Asia where one regional channel group is representing another in ad sales. We recognise this vote of confidence and are very excited about the creative solutions that we can potentially offer to regional advertisers.

" With an entire suite of eight channels and the combined efforts of the two channel groups, advertisers can definitely expect much more value than what was available before".

In less than two years, Aaan has expanded the reach of its portfolio of factual channel brands throughout S.E Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Available in 3.5 million households, Pax studies show that History’s past 7 days viewership has increased by over 16 per cent across all markets. Kuala Lumpur, in particular, showed an increase of 250 per cent in just 21 months.

In Singapore, the TNS Tam service shows that History reached average 668,000 viewers per month in January and February 2009, demonstrating a 24 per cent growth over the same period in 2008.