| Type | Cable television network, Subsidiary of News Corporation |
|---|---|
| Industry | Entertainment |
| Founded | 1 August 1991 |
| Founder(s) | Rupert Murdoch |
| Headquarters | Mumbai, India |
| Key people | Uday Shankar (CEO) Jagdish Kumar (COO) |
| Products | Television channels, Film |
| Owner(s) | News Corporation |
| Website | STAR TV |
Satellite Television Asian Region (STAR) is an Asian TV service owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. It is headquartered in Mumbai, with regional offices in cities Delhi and Chennai.
STAR India, is said to be the leading media and entertainment company, has the highest reach among the country's broadcasters, beaming to over 168 million people every week across India and over 65 countries across the globe.[1]
STAR India's portfolio includes 32 channels in eight languages including STAR Plus, STAR One (shut down), STAR Gold, Channel V, STAR Jalsha, STAR Pravah, STAR World, STAR Movies, STAR Utsav; along with the joint venture channels Asianet, Sky News, FX, Fox Crime, STAR Vijay, STAR News, STAR Ananda, ESPN, STAR Sports and Life OK among others.
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The New Economic Policy of India, in 1993, led to Globalisation, Privatisation and Liberalization of Indian markets. India witnesed a rapid spurt in growth of satellite television leading to a revolution in the television industry after 1993.
The company was launched in 1990 by Subash Chandra Goyal as a part of Zee TV but was later bought by STAR TV. It started broadcasting five television channels on 1 January 1991 from AsiaSat 1 Satellite. Launch of The STAR TV Network pioneered satellite television in India and in the process catalyzed explosive growth in the media industry across the entire region.
In 1993 Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation purchased 63.6% of STAR for over $500 million, followed by the purchase of the remaining 36.4% in 1 January 1993.[2][3] Murdoch declared that:[4]
"(telecommunications) have proved an unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes everywhere ... satellite broadcasting makes it possible for information-hungry residents of many closed societies to bypass state-controlled television channels"
In the years after Murdoch purchased Star, an agreement with Subhash Chandra prohibited Star from creating Hindi-language programming, so Star relied mainly on English-language imported programming. Star was third in Indian market share (3%) behind Zee TV (12%) and Sony (11%). For four years until 1999, Star had losses of nearly US$500 million. Consequently, Murdoch revamped Star management; programming chief Sameer Nair decided to start creating Hindi-language programming to target "mass instead of class."[5]
International satellite programming has opened up competition in news and public affairs programming with BBC and CNN International challenging Doordarshan's long standing monopoly. Most of the other foreign broadcasters, for example, ESPN and the Discovery Channel, are focusing on special interest programming. Only StarTV's STAR Plus channel offers broad-based English language entertainment programs. Most of its programs are syndicated U.S. shows, for example soap operas like The Bold and the Beautiful and Santa Barbara and talk shows like Donahue and Oprah. Even when STAR Plus has a very large share of the audience in India, It is threatened by the launch of new channels.
In August 2009, STAR Broadcasting Corporation revealed a restructure to its Asian broadcast businesses into four units - STAR (India), STAR (Greater China), STAR Select and Fox International Channels Asia.
Today STAR Broadcasting Corporation broadcasts over 60 services in 13 languages. Shows include entertainment, sports, movies, music, news and documentaries.
Reaching over 168 million people every week across India and over 65 countries across the globe, STAR Broadcasting Corporation is watched by approximately 120 million viewers every day.[6]
STAR Broadcasting Corporation controls over 50,000 hours of Indian programming and also owns the world's largest contemporary Indian and International film library, with more than 800 titles, featuring superstars including Amitabh Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and International superstars like Angelina Jolie and Sean Connery. In partnership with leading companies in Asia, STAR Broadcasting Corporation businesses extend to filmed entertainment, television production, cable systems and distribution, direct-to-home services, terrestrial TV broadcasting, wireless and digital services.
STAR India also manages a portfolio of business ventures including DTH operator Tata Sky; cable system Hathway, channel distributor STAR Den, news channel operator MCCS, the film production and distribution business Fox Star Studios and STAR CJ Home Shopping.
STAR India entered into High Definition broadcasting on 15 April 2011 with the launch of the HD versions of its popular channels. Newly launched channels are Star Plus HD, Star Movies HD, Star World HD, Star Gold HD and National Geographic Channel India HD.
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