HBO Expands Asian Reach

Worldscreen
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By Mansha Daswani
Published: July 6, 2009

SINGAPORE: HBO Asia has expanded its presence in the region, clinching new carriage deals in the Philippines and Mongolia and rolling out additional services in a host of markets, including Indonesia and Cambodia.

In Cambodia, HBO Asia has increased its offerings from two channels—HBO and MAX—to five. Through its distributor, Royal Group, all five HBO Asia multiplex channels—HBO, HBO Signature, HBO Family, HBO Hits and MAX—will be available on various cable TV operators throughout Cambodia. In Indonesia, pay platform Indovision is adding HBO Hits and HBO Family to its lineup, completing the five-channel HBO Asia multiplex. Indovision is the second cable operator in Indonesia, after First Media, to offer all of HBO Asia’s five multiplex channels. Similarly, HiTron in Papua New Guinea has completed the five-channel multiplex with the addition of HBO Signature, HBO Family and HBO Hits.

In Mongolia, the HBO multiplex is available for the first time on DDish TV. HBO and MAX has been available to subscribers of Mongolia’s Super Cable Vision TV since 2002. In the Philippines, HBO Asia has signed a new carriage deal with newly launched DTH operator Cignal DTV. Cignal DTV has been offering HBO to its subscribers since April and will be launching more HBO Asia channels soon.

Currently, HBO Asia has a subscriber base of more than 31 million and is seen in 22 countries.