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| Sunday, 13 July 2003 |
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BBC World seeks new growth avenues Sri Lanka will have a bright future in the multi-channel business as business avenues are opening up due to the stable environment in the country both politically and economically, said Gerry Ritchie, Head of Network Development, BBC World. He was a member of the BBC World team that hosted a trade reception in Sri Lanka last week for its key affiliates in the cable hotel and broadcasting industry. BBC World is the British Broadcasting Corporation's commercially-funded 24-hour international news and information channel. Raising the profile and drawing attention to the channel and saying 'thank you' to existing distributors were the main reasons for hosting the reception. The reception also gave BBC World's guests an opportunity to meet Keshini Navaratnam, presenter of BBC World's flagship programme, Asia Today, and share her experiences. Sri Lankan-born Navaratnam talked about the channel's in-depth coverage of major happenings around the world and significant developments in key markets across Asia. Ritchie said business is beginning to grow in Sri Lanka and predicted that the country will be a business hub in the future as it has all the basic facilities in place including the infrastructure and educated manpower with the added bonus of peace in the horizon. Sunita Rajan, Deputy Airtime Sales Director said that Asia is a very important region for BBC World. She said that there are continuous attempts by the BBC World to increase the programme platform "as we enjoy a strong viewership in this region". "From time to time, we do country-specific programmes and we have featured Sri Lanka in the travel segment while we also did the SriLankan Airlines advertising campaign in Europe when the national carrier changed its name from Air Lanka." "We are not new to this market, but we are looking at new avenues to expand our business relationship with the country," she said. Rajan also said that tourism has the potential to be among the major revenue earners for Sri Lanka because of the country's diversity, peace and the warmth of its people. "We are exploring all avenues to promote our channel at hotels. BBC World is presently beamed through Pan Am Sat 10 and is available in 15,000 homes via MMDS and cable and in over 3,500 hotel rooms. BBC World offers a dedicated strip of programmes for audiences across South Asia telecast at 2200 IST from Thursday through Sunday. These include Mastermind India, Business Bizarre, Face to Face, Question Time India and India Business Report. In 2001, HARDtalk India won the Indian Telly Awards organised by indiantelevision.com for the best current affairs programme. |
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