STAR India to launch an action channel

According to market grapevine, the English action channel will be rolled out tentatively by early January.

The STAR Network, which already operates in the domain of Hindi general entertainment channels (GECs), regional GECs, youth, and English movies and entertainment in India, will now step into the action genre with the launch of an English action channel.

According to market grapevine, the channel is expected to be called Fox Action Movies, and will be rolled out sometime in December, or in early January 2012. Industry insiders also suggest that Tribal DDB is handling the channel's digital marketing. In fact, STAR is expected to conduct a roadblock across the network around the weekend (December 17-18), to announce the launch of the channel.

However, it is pertinent to note here that when contacted, STAR officials and Tribal DDB, along with Mindshare (which handles the media mandate for the network), denied acknowledging the development to afaqs!.

For the record, in August 2009, News Corporation had announced a restructure of its Asian broadcast businesses into three units -- STAR India, STAR Greater China, and Fox International Channels (FIC). FIC combines the English language channels earlier managed by STAR, with the FOX and National Geographic brands for distribution in the rest of Asia.

With the launch of this new channel, the number of English language channels that will fall under the STAR India radar will total five. Currently, in the English language segment, STAR India manages the distribution and sales functions of Fox Crime, FX, STAR World, and STAR Movies.

Meanwhile, following the restructuring, STAR India was given the mandate to manage sales and distribution of News Corporation channels in India.