YR Asia launches across APAC

Singapore - YR Asia, Singapore's first regional satellite TV station targeting Mandarin-speaking audiences, is launching the 24-hour entertainment channel in 15 countries in APAC, with Hong Kong and Macau getting the first feed from 18 October.

This will be followed by Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Indo-China and Pakistan by the end of this year, while Taiwan is tentatively slated for a January 2009 launch. YR Asia aims to reach out to 1.2 billion Mandarin-speaking people in China and the rest of APAC, and will feature content from different categories like variety, sports, drama, animation, lifestyle and documentaries from its global content partners.

The channel also acquired 120 hours of Singaporean content, mainly in the genres of lifestyle and documentary series, and is currenly finalising an exclusive broadcast rights to 20 hours of brand new Mandarin content supported by the MDA.

"With more broadcasters converging in Singapore, local content producers can leverage these international cable and satellite networks to reach a wider audience.  The programme sale to YR Asia is an example of this positive synergy between our growing pool of content aggregators and producers.  Through YR Asia, our factual programmes will reach an estimated 1.2 billion people in the region, helping our content to gain greater traction in the Mandarin television market," MDA's CEO, Christopher Chia, said.