Asia Satellite Telecommunications Company Limited (AsiaSat) has expanded the services for Sports Star International Private Limited (Sports Star) of Pakistan on AsiaSat 7 to deliver an HD news channel ‘Public News’ across Asia-Pacific (APAC.

Sports Star currently transmits entertainment channel ‘A-Plus’ as well as Pakistan’s first women’s channel ‘A-Lite’ on AsiaSat 7, targeting different audience segments locally and across APAC. Public News is Sports Star’s latest HD service to bring daily news bulletins to viewers by leveraging the power of AsiaSat 7 that is already delivering two current channels.

Artistic rendition of the AsiaSat-7 satellite.

AsiaSat will also offer Ku-band capacity on AsiaSat 7 for Public News’ SNG services in news gathering and contribution. AsiaSat has been serving Pakistan since 1991, which is hosting one of Asia’s widest range of Urdu language programming, from news, enter tainment, and music to movies, cartoons and dramas.

Barrie Woolston, CCO of AsiaSat, said that Pakistan represents one of the company's most important and largest media markets. This additional capacity to Sports Star will strengthen their ability to diversify content for APAC audiences. The launch of Public News on AsiaSat advances the firm's goal of growing the AsiaSat HD bouquet of international and local news channels.