Star India has unfrozen its plan to shut down its regional Infotainment channels National Geographic Tamil and National Geographic Telugu that were earlier supposed to shut down on 31st January 2020. The regional Infotainment channels are now headed towards shutdown cometh 15th August 2020 at 24:00 hours.
Star India in a letter to its distribution affiliates on 16th July intimated that the discontinuation of National Geographic Tamil and National Geographic Telugu which earlier vide Star’s letter dated March 26, 2020, was put on hold till further intimation has now been rescheduled to 15th August 24:00 hours. The channels launched on 20th June 2019 with an a-la-carte price of Rs 2 but never onboarded major distribution platforms.
The affiliate letter, a copy of which DreamDTH has access to courtesy of Rakesh Kumar further states that the shutdown of Star World Premiere HD which was initially scheduled on 31st January, 2020 remains deferred until further information.
DreamDTH had in January reported the shutdown of National Geographic Tamil, National Geographic Telugu, and Star World Premiere HD effective 31st January 2020. Tata Sky, a JV between Tata Sons and Star India in turn had run a discontinuation scroll on Star World Premiere HD effective 31st January 2020.
DreamDTH has reached out to Star India for a comment on the development. At the time of filing this story, the press query remained unanswered. We will update this space as and when the revert drops in.
Star India had also planned to launch Vijay Music, Star Movies Select, Star Gold 2 HD, and Star Sports 3 HD on 1st February, 2020 with Disney Channel HD launching on 1st March, 2020. Star India however only went ahead with the rebranding of Movies OK as Star Gold 2 on 1st February, 2020.
The launch and shutdowns of channels were however put on hold until further intimation in April due to the NTO 2.0 impasse which was followed with COVID-19 induced lockdown across the country.
Did These Channels Even Existed Before???
Yes and No. They existed for the technical team of Star India which uplinks channels but for TV viewers it was not available at all.
Basil Bro.May I Ask You A Question?It Is Not That Personal But Still Personal.
What Does ENOUGH. Means On Your Twitter Profile Photo.
Damn! I am gonna miss these Nat Geo channels.
Jokes aside! Star India has incredible library. They need to utilise channels like Star World Premiere HD with edgy and niche content from HBO, FX and Showtime. Too much of coffee, stories of meeting mothers and along with a modern family is ruining Star World as well. Give Sopranos and The Goldbergs a chance. And what happened to Jimmy Kimmel? It’s not available on any streaming platform. Why take a famous talk show like that off air? Learn from rivals who are doing tremendous job with Tonight Show, Ellen, James Corden and even The Graham Norton.
Star World will be shutting down too.
That ain’t happening in next 5 years atleast. Disney is slowly expanding it’s footprint in India. Don’t you think they would want to expand audience for it’s content. Earlier they use to rent out content to other channels. Now they get to directly cater to customer.
Recent success of Disney International HD’s ratings shows that there is a market for family friendly English content.
ET report with Uday Shankar quote has mentioned Star World shutdown.
https://twitter.com/gauravl_ET/status/1287640960386572291
He didn’t say that. Read carefully quotation marks were removed in that part.
Yes, he didn’t say that, but ET mentioned that.
The posted it based on rumours I guess.
That is possible.