Pyramid Saimira teams up with European DTH operator Spize TV

Mumbai: Pyramid Saimira Entertainment Ltd, a unit of multiplex operator Pyramid Saimira Theatre Ltd, has entered into a partnership with Europe's Spize TV, a direct-to-home platform, for content and new channels.

The platform will have bouquets in various Indian languages and Spize TV will soon start Chinese and Spanish offerings, the company informed BSE in a statement issued today.

Spize TV is a pan-European DTH platform offering Asian and niche content to viewers in Europe.

Spize TV is available on the EuroBird-9 (EB9) satellite, which allows viewers to benefit from the 500+ free-to-air channels on the HotBird satellite by a simple dual-LNB upgrade.

The technical details of SpizeTV platform are EB9@9° East, 11,843 V, Txp 56, Symbol 27,500 and 3/4 FEC

Spize TV will have `North' - Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, Bangali and Gujarati other lingua) bouquet, and a `South' bouquet of Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, and Singhalese and Malay.

It will also have Chinese and Spanish bouquet shortly, the statement added.

Spize TV also announces the start of a platform with the complete suite of ARY Network channels (ARY Digital, ARY OneWorld, QTV, and The Musik) and also the two B4U Network channels (B4U Movies & B4U Music) in its `North' bouquet.

Other channels will be added in due course, The `South' bouquet currently has DAN (Tamil) and TV Lanka (Sinhalese), and others being added.

Since the above "soft launch" of the bouquet, the channels are available, and the formal full-scale commercial launch for viewers will be in April-May 2008.

The Hot Bird platform will be available to over 130 million households: 23 million in North Africa and the Middle East, 30 million in central and eastern Europe, 77 million in western Europe. SpizeTV plans to target the 30 million strong European "niche and expat" viewers across the region, according to the statement.

Spize TV will have both `Viaeccess' and `Irdeto' conditional access systems to allow both bouquets to watch a mix of channels, including live international cricket matches played in India and Pakistan.

SpizeTV will be arranging the installation of `dual-LNBs' on the existing viewers of HotBird dishes to allow them to continue watching their other favourite channels on the HotBird satellite, as well as a large bouquet of channels on SpizeTV on the EB9 satellite.

"Spize TV is yet another giant baby step for our global entertainment strategy. With this we are now creating last mile access which will synergise and will also leverage our content significantly. This also sets us well on the way on our European expansion strategy. Personally for me this is a re-entry into cable and satellite space and this will a start of an exiting journey in
this space," said Pyramid Saimira managing director P S Saminathan.