HBO Asia developing two more channels for pay-TVs

Jonathan Spink, CEO of the leading global content distributor, told The Nation yesterday that the Asian market including Thailand was emerging with a strong population, while demand had become more sophisticated. 

He did not elaborate on the two new channels, saying they were under development, but believes that they would serve demand from Asian viewers like RED, which recently debuted on True Visions, Thailand’s largest pay-TV operator. 

RED offers an array of premium Asian movie entertainment from China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and other Asian countries.

“With the launch of RED HD in Thailand, True Visions now has all of HBO Asia’s bouquet of high-definition channels, namely HBO HD, HBO SIGNATURE HD, HBO HITS HD, HBO FAMILY HD and CINEMAX,” he said. 

Ong-ard Prapakamol, chief commercial officer of True Visions, said the new programmes were available in their original soundtrack and in Thai. RED HD was also available on TrueVisions 136 for New Platinum HD, New Gold HD, New Super Family, New Super Knowledge, and New Super Sports HD. 

True Knowledge Package subscribers can view this channel in standard definition on True Visions 38.

HBO Asia and True Visions laid the cornerstone of their cooperation two decades ago. 

True Visions’ pay-TV platform was a home of HBO Asia, but since new players had arrived in the Thai pay-TV industry, HBO Asia had changed its marketing strategy by looking for new partners. 

Besides True Visions, HBO Asia is now working with GMM Grammy, the country’s music and entertainment giant, to distribute TV channels under Warner TV for the GMM Z pay-TV service.

HBO Asia has exclusive licensing deals with the major Hollywood studios – Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Universal Studios and Warner Bros – and many major independents. 

It is also the exclusive distributor of BabyFirst and WarnerTV in Asia and a joint venture of HBO, a Time Warner company, and Paramount.