Telenor Xpress 1 - 2000

Tuning home

When Telenor began exploring expansion opportunities in satellite broadcasting last year, it uncovered an untapped market right on its doorstep. Of the millions of multi-cultural expatriates living in Europe, only a handful had access to programming from their home countries. Immediately, Telenor launched a new business division to address the programming needs of this vast and growing market. Telenor ColourSat was born.

Within the past six months, ColourSat has proven to be one of the company’s most energetic start-ups, signing two new international channels – Russia’s ORT International and Pakistani Prime – to its growing list of multi-cultural programming.

According to ColourSat’s marketing director, Sandra Xiao, ColourSat will offer a wide variety of programming from around the world. Currently, it has distribution rights to five channels: ORT, International Prime TV, NRK International, TV Finland and Denmark’s Radio 1. But that number is rising fast. “By the end of the year, we plan to have taken on eight more channels”, says Xiao, noting that Asian and Latin American offerings are likely to be added to ColourSat’s growing menu of channels in the near future.

Nordic package
Telenor’s aim with ColourSat is to deliver familiar programming to the vast number of expatriates living outside their homeland across Europe. Even before the launch of ColourSat, Telenor Satellite had marketed a Nordic package of channels from Norway, Denmark and Finland to Scandinavian expats living farther south. According to Xiao, ColourSat’s plan is to pattern other channel clusters in a similar fashion, offering, for example, three Asian or four Latin channels.

After launching the Nordic package in August 1998, Telenor later purchased Nordic Satellite Broadcasting – the Brussels-based company which had handled the sales and marketing activities for the Nordic channels. The operation was then moved to Oslo, centralising the entire service value chain, from distribution, customisation and encryption of programming agreements to the marketing and customer support for DTH (Direct To Home) households.

From Russia with love
In mid-November of 1999, ColourSat began encrypted broadcasts of Russia’s ORT International, a channel based on the country’s most popular news, entertainment and radio programming. Demographics showed an enormous population of Russian speaking individuals living in Europe. The most recent figures estimate there to be at least five million. The only question was, would they be interested in such programming. Based on the number of callers who bombarded ColourSat requesting the channel, it’s safe to say the answer was yes. After first being introduced to the DTH market in Germany, home to nearly three million Russian expatriates, the channel was later rolled out to the rest of Europe. Less than two months after launch, ColourSat had already registered 2,000 subscribers.

ColourSat will soon be Prime TV, targeting the two million plus Urdu and Punjabi-speaking people living in Europe. The 24-hour channel broadcasts a variety of Muslim-oriented programming from Pakistan, attracting not only Pakistani viewers, but others from Bangladesh and the Punjab and Bengal regions of India as well.

Taking people home
Xiao and her co-workers at ColourSat feel strongly about the programming they offer. “We believe we are about more than just interesting television shows and radio”, says Xiao. “Our motto at ColourSat is that home is much more than where you live. It’s language, food, music, news, sport, culture and nature… in short, everything that contributes to establishing your identity”.

“We like to feel we are helping to create a permanent link between people and their homeland”.

For more information, visit ColourSat’s website at www.coloursat.com

ORT International
Targeting: 5 million Russian-speaking people living elsewhere in Europe
Programming: News, children’s programmes, films and talk shows
Airing: 18 hours every day

Prime TV
Targeting: 2 million plus Urdu and Punjabi-speaking people living in Europe
Programming: News, children’s programmes, films, talk shows, drama and documentaries
Airing: 24 hours