In a move designed to delight the cricket community, Columbus Communications Jamaica Limited operators of the Flow brand, announced the addition of a 24 hour cricket channel to its lineup. This cricket channel is the result of a partnership between Flow and Ten Cricket, a 24/7 cricket channel operated by ZEE TV (Asia Television)
Under a 3 year agreement, between the two organizations, Ten Cricket will be programmed exclusively on Flow in Jamaica, Trinidad, Grenada, Barbados, St Lucia, Antigua and St Vincent until 2016. The news coincides with the start of the Celkon Cup Tri-nation One Day International series featuring The West Indies, Sri Lanka and ICC Champions Trophy winners, India.
According to Donovan White, Vice President of Marketing and Sales the channel will be a cricket lovers dream! “This is great news for the sport of cricket, for sports fan in general and for subscriber television,” said White. He noted that the partnership will enable greater exposure for the sport as it allows cricket fans to see a wide range of cricket action including the broadcast of all home and away cricket matches played by teams representing West Indies, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Pakistan and South Africa on Flow’s digital cable television network.
Ten Cricket will be a 24 hour cricket channel and the programming will include live and repeat broadcasts of the matches of major Tests, ODIs and T20 matches along with other cricket related programmes that viewers would not normally have access to. In order to enable Caribbean cricket fans to cheer on the West Indies as they play India and Sri Lanka in the current one-day international series, White also announced a special introductory offer for cricket fans. “We are proud to extend a special free view period of 1 month that will expire on July 31, 2013 so they never miss a minute of the action in the Celkon Cup Tri-Nation One Day international series.”
Sameer Targe, General Manager of Zee Americas said, “We are very excited with the launch of Ten Cricket in the Caribbean islands. Columbus has always been very forward looking in its approach, when it comes to its subscribers”. Zee Americas’ Director of Content Distribution, Akhilesh Gupta adds, “There isa definite need fora quality 24/7 cricket channel in the Caribbean. This launch fills that void and extends our long term association with Columbus”.
Flow is a major enabler of sports in the Caribbean. In Jamaica Flow is the title sponsor of football and basketball and works with other broadcast partners to host training initiatives, such as football and basketball clinics to strengthen coaching, administrative and player’ skills. This is the first major cricket initiative where the Broadband Company is using its technology to enable greater exposure for cricket.
Columbus continues to be an innovator in delivery of digital cable TV services. Under the Flow brand Columbus was the first to bring 3D television channels and Video OnDemand technology into consumers’ homes.
Columbus also introduced personal video recording (PVR) technology in the markets in which it serves, enabling customers to record favorite programmes to watch at their convenience, after the scheduled broadcast times.
Columbus’ latest innovations in broadcast television are the introduction of Flow ToGo, a multi-screen application which enables customers to watch their cable TV service on PC’s and Mac computers as well as mobile devices such as the iPAD and iPhones, and cloud-based pvr technology which eliminates the need for a separate PRV set top box and enables customers to store recordings of their programmes in the cloud.
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