CANNES: Technology channel, which has gone easy on its plans to launch in the Indian market, used MIPTV to announce that it had struck deals with a full channel rollout in the Philippines, Indonesia and the Maldives.
In the Philippines, it is cable distribution company Cable Boss which has done a deal with TechTV to represent the channel in the territory and has placed it on the second largest cable platform, Destiny Cable. In Indonesia, the largest cable operator Kabelvision has agreed to carry the channel, while in the Maldives it is Maldives Electronic Services and J-Sat Communications Maldives which have signed on.
Its programming sales efforts have also borne fruit, the international channel announced. Its sales deal with Japan's BB Factory for daily satellite-delivered episodes of Tech Live was re-initialled while Spain's Sogecable, YLE Finland, Tango TV Luxembourg, Studio U7 Russia and even Eagle TV in Mongolia have agreed to pick up its content, said TechTV's new senior vice-president of worldwide distribution, Peter Gochis. While Finland YLE is to broadcast episodes of felony-focused CyberCrime, computer-animated Eye Drops and gadget show Fresh Gear, Russia's Studio U7 licensed episodes of Eye Drops and CyberCrime. Tango TV in Luxembourg has picked up TechTV World, Eagle TV in Mongolia will run Zip File International and Spain's Sogecable has licensed the one-off Tech of Shrek.
Gochis recently took over from Tom Grams, who is now focusing on programme strategy in the new post of vice-president of programming. Gochis also announced deals for TechTV's news programming with airline carriers in Asia, Scandinavia and in the US. among the airlines coming on board include: Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Malaysia Airlines, SAS, Finn Air and Northwest.