MUMBAI: Sun TV launched in the UK on Sunday, the only Indian regional broadcaster to telecast 'live' internationally, according to Sun TV chairman and managing director Kalanithi Maran.
According to Maran, the channel would also be available to viewers in West Asia, and there are plans to start a similar arrangement for South Africa. ``Today's launch puts us firmly on the world's television map from the U.S., U.K. and Europe to West Asia, the Far East and Australia,'' Maran has been quoted as saying in the Hindu.
Sun TV will be free to air for a month in the UK, after which viewers would have to pay to watch the channel. A Malayalam component supplied by Surya, a Sun Network channel, would also be included in the offering. While Maran hopes to treble the number of viewers in the region in the next three months, the decision to bring Sun TV to the UK shores was prompted by the ``tremendous response'' to an earlier arrangement under which its taped programmes were shown through Deepam TV. 
``So, in a sense, we already had a presence here with about 18,000 subscribers here and in Europe, but people wanted live news and other programmes as they happened,'' Maran is quoted as saying.