Leading satellite services company GlobeCast has announced a long-term agreement with Prime TV to deliver 24-hour Pakistani family channel PTV Prime to subscribers in the UK, Ireland and Europe. The deal sees GlobeCast providing an end-to-end distribution service for the subscription channel which will be available on GlobeCasts direct-to-home platforms via Eurobird and Hot Bird. In the UK and Ireland, PTV Prime will reach 7.5m people on Sky Digital.
PTV Prime was the first 24-hour Pakistani channel to launch in Europe and has exclusive rights to broadcast state-owned Pakistan Television (PTV) content outside Asia. Offering a mix of family programming in English and Urdu, it features programmes created specifically for European-based Pakistanis, Urdu and Punjabi families as well as PTV content.
PTV Prime (www.ptv-prime.tv) also airs live news bulletins nine times daily from the PTV News Network in Asia. Simultaneously broadcast in Asia and Europe, the bulletins ensure PTV Prime viewers in Europe receive up-to-the minute information and breaking news as it happens in Pakistan.
To provide the feeds for the European news and programming content, GlobeCast downlinks PTV News and Pakistan TV from AsiaSat 3S in Singapore and backhauls it over its global fibre network to London via America. GlobeCast also provides an end-to-end managed satellite distribution service which includes an uplink from Brookmans Park to Eurobird and Hot Bird, enabling the channel to reach a potential 100 million viewers across the UK and Europe. This is the first time a single company has been able to meet PTV Primes global satellite distribution needs.