Arena gaining ground, Zainal and Edleen for SA

For Immediate Release


Astro Arena Gaining Ground as the Home for Malaysian Sports


Kuala Lumpur, 26 May 2010 - Astro Arena (CH 801), Malaysia’s first dedicated 24-hour local sports channel on Astro is proving to become synonymous as the home channel for local sports coverage among Malaysians. Based on the recent figures from AC Nielsen Media Research, ASTRO customers instinctively tune into Astro Arena (CH 801) for the best coverage of Malaysian sporting heroes in action.

During the recent Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Kuala Lumpur, Astro Arena (CH 801) triumphed at the Number 1 slot with the highest number of viewers during the LIVE broadcast of the Quarter-final match between Malaysia vs. Denmark held on Wednesday, 12 May 2010 whereby a total of 501,887 Malaysians tuned in to catch the nations battle for a place in the Semi-finals .

It also achieved the highest slot for the LIVE broadcast of the Semi-final matches on Friday, 14 May 2010 as the nation watched with bated breath as the home team contended against defending champions, China, with 485,296 viewers from 7.30pm to 8.40pm.

Lee Choong Khay, Head of Sports Business of Astro said, “It has been three months since the launch of the channel and already we have received encouraging viewership figures. Needless to say, we are very happy as it indicates Malaysians have accepted Astro Arena as the home channel for local sports coverage. This aligns with our mission to bring more sports to Malaysia.”

“Moving forward, Malaysians will have more chances to watch their nation’s sporting heroes closely and see how they fare in some of the regional sports events on Astro Arena, especially in the upcoming events this year such as Commonwealth Games in Delhi, Asian Games in Guangzhou and the first Youth Olympics in Singapore,” Lee added.

From May 9 to the finals on May 16, 2010, Astro SuperSport (CH 811) and Astro Arena (CH 801) broadcasted concurrent matches respectively, of both the Thomas Cup and Uber Cup. Additionally, for the first time ever, the semi-finals and finals matches of both Thomas and Uber Cups were broadcasted in High Definition (HD) over Astro SuperSport HD (CH 831) for Astro’s sports pack customers with Astro B.yond HD subscriptions.

With two channels, home viewers were able to watch more top-rated matches LIVE especially those involving the home team in Bahasa Malaysia commentary on Astro Arena (CH 801) and in English commentary on Astro SuperSport (CH 811).

In addition, Astro Arena will be broadcasting 35 matches of the World Cup in Bahasa Malaysia commentary, highlights and links directly to South Africa from two of its hosts, Edleen Ismail and Zainal Abidin Rawop bringing you a taste of the their World Cup euphoria in South Africa and more.

Astro Arena completes ASTRO’s Family Package with sports offering alongside entertainment, information and education. With Astro Arena, currently there are 31 ASTRO branded and affiliated channels and 10 sports channels, including 2 channels in High Definition and 1 channel for sports pay-per-view on the ASTRO platform.