Fox Networks Group Asia Pacific


Fox Networks Group Asia Pacific Limited is a Hong Kong-based commercial broadcasting company which is a part of Walt Disney Direct-to-Consumer & International's Fox Networks Group, operating multiple specialty television channels. It was previously traded as Star TV until 2001, and simply as Star until 2009. Originally established by Hutchison Whampoa and later acquired by the original News Corporation, Star TV was once the prominent satellite television broadcaster in the entire Asia region. On March 20, 2019 Following Disney's acquisition of 21st Century Fox's entertainment assets, FNG Asia and Star India, became a part of Disney and the FNG Asia Pacific was integrated into Disney’s Direct-to-Consumer and International unit.
FNG Asia Pacific's channels were available in East Asia and Southeast Asia, and it previously served South Asia and the Middle East.

History

Launch

The company was originally registered to the Companies Registry of Hong Kong as Quford Limited on 31 August 1990. The company was renamed Hutchvision Channel Services Limited on 31 January 1991, before becoming Satellite Television Asian Region Limited on 4 July 1991. It was established by Hutchison Whampoa, and was headed by Richard Li.
The company operated its television channels under the blanket brand of Star TV. In its initial years, the channels were broadcast over AsiaSat 1 communication satellite operated by Asia Satellite Telecommunications, which was a consortium of Hutchison Whampoa, China International Trust and Investment Corporation and Cable & Wireless Worldwide. As with the satellite's footprint, the channels reached from the Far East to the Middle East. Star TV's initial line-up of advertisement-supported five free-to-air channels included:
  1. Prime Sports : 24-hour clock multi-sport television channel broadcast in English and Chinese; joint venture with TCI in the United States which owned Prime Network.
  2. MTV : 24-hour clock music channel broadcast in English, Hindi and Chinese, focused on pop music; regional version of the American TV channel of the same name.
  3. Chinese Channel : 24-hour clock all full Mandarin Chinese variety entertainment channel that showcased full Chinese language content provided by TVB and ATV in Hong Kong broadcasts from Mainland China; also showed television series from other Greater China countries including China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and Singapore.
  4. WSTV : 24-hour clock news, current affairs and information from the BBC; unlike the European counterpart, this version of BBC World Service Television did not air variety entertainment programmes, as they were shown on Star Plus.
  5. Star Plus : 24-hour clock English language variety entertainment channel which showed dramas and variety shows from English-speaking countries including United States, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.
On 1 October 1992, Star TV added Zee TV from Zee Telefilms in India to its line-up.
In February 1993, Julian Mounter, former director-general of Television New Zealand, was appointed as president and Chief Executive of the company.
In June 1993, Star TV and Wharf Cable signed a deal in which Hong Kong's new cable television provider would carry Star TV's channels. However, the deal was terminated in February 1994 in the carriage dispute between the two parties.

Sale to News Corporation

Star TV's viewership across Asia have increased over the years, and it attracted advertisers. But the business was making loss. The company has been looking for an Anglophone partner for financial investments, additional English language programming and technical assistance, especially to launch a pay-television system that would carry encrypted channels.
By late April 1993, Pearson approached Star TV's owners, and was expected to pay up to GBP 100 million. Pearson has been looking to expand its media business outside the UK, especially because the British laws at that time did not allow Pearson to expand more on UK television business. Pearson was looking for the 66% of the company, but the deal was reported to have required the Hong Kong side to remain active shareholders, making the deal to be turned down.
The initial negotiations with Rupert Murdoch were reported to have foundered after the Australian businessman demanded a controlling stake in the Hong Kong company. But in July 1993, Murdoch's News Corporation have managed to purchase 63.6% of Star TV for US$525 million, half in cash, half in News Corporation's ordinary shares, blocking offers from Pearson. The deal came after News Corporation failed to acquire 22% of TVB because of regulatory issues. News Corporation acquired the remaining 36.4% for US$299 million in July 1995. Li family and Hutchison Whampoa would retain its shares in Hutchvision Hong Kong Limited, which uplinked Star TV's channels. With the amount of money made from the 1993 sale, Richard Li went on to establish his own venture, Pacific Century Group.
In August 1993, following News Corporation's takeover, Julian Mounter resigned as Chief Executive of the company. Sam Chisholm, who was the head of BSkyB at the time, became acting Chief Executive before he was formally appointed.
With the controversial removal of BBC World Service Television from the company's satellite television offerings for Northeast Asia in 1994, Star TV replaced the BBC channel with three channels, International news channel CNN International, English-language film channel Star Movies and Chinese-language film channel Star Chinese Movies,
Star TV and MTV ended partnership that supplied music television programming, so Star TV launched Channel V to replace the American brand. The Indian version was launched in May 1994, it was followed by four additional versions: Channel V International, Channel V Thailand, Channel V Korea, Channel V Japan, and another three versions in Mandarin Chinese, Vietnamese and Cantonese.
On 30 March 1996 at 7 pm Hong Kong Time, Star TV split into Star Plus and Star Chinese Channel by certain areas:
On 6 May 1996, Star TV launched Viva Cinema, the 24-hour Filipino film channel, in partnership with Viva Entertainment. STAR later exited from the partnership and did not renew their contract, and the channel was relaunched as Pinoy Box Office on August 1, 2003.
In October 1996, Star Sports and ESPN Asia have agreed to combine their loss making operations in Asia. The new joint venture, later named ESPN Star Sports, would be headquartered in Singapore.
In 1997, Star TV launched Star Select package of television channels targeting the Middle East.
On 18 February 1998, Star TV launched Star News, a news channel targeting India, in partnership with NDTV. It switched partner to ABP Group in 2003, before Star India completely gave up and sold their share in 2012.
In May 1999, Star TV migrated its services from AsiaSat 1 and 2 to AsiaSat 3S.
Later, Zee TV ended partnership with Star TV. The Hong Kong-based company converted Star Plus to a Hindi entertainment channel, and introduced Star World in the area as an English entertainment replacement.
In February 2001, The company rebranded from Star TV to Star, reflecting the company's evolution from a television brand to a multi-service, multi-platform brand. In Chinese, the company referred itself as Xīngkōng Chuánméi instead of Wèixīng Diànshì from then on. It introduced a new set of logos. The logo scheme of the Star network that had been used throughout 2007.

2009 restructure, refocus on East and Southeast Asia

On 19 August 2009, News Corporation announced a restructure of Star. Star India and Star Greater China would be separated from Star's headquarters in Hong Kong, and the heads of the former two companies would report directly to James Murdoch, News Corporation's then-Chairman and Chief Executive for Europe and Asia.
Despite the 2009 reorganisations, the company did not immediately change its legal name from Satellite Television Asian Region Limited. It only changed legal name to Fox International Channels Asia Pacific Limited on 2 September 2014.
In August 2010, it was announced that News Corporation would sell a controlling stake in its assets in mainland China to China Media Capital. Xing Kong and Channel V Mainland China, plus Fortune Star film library were in the sale, and a joint venture named Star China Media was created in the process. CMC acquired the remaining stake in Star China Media in January 2014.
In June 2012, it was announced that News Corporation would buy ESPN International's share in the joint venture ESPN Star Sports. The versions of ESPN broadcast in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Southeast Asia were rebranded as Fox Sports on 28 January 2013, and Star Sports became Fox Sports 2 on 15 August 2014. The Fox Sports rebrand did not affect India and East Asia: In India, Star India took over ESPN Star Sports' Indian subsidiary, and kept the ESPN name until 6 November 2013, when all of Star India's sports channels were relaunched under the Star Sports brand; a version of Star Sports broadcast to mainland China and South Korea kept the brand, and instead, the version of ESPN for mainland China was renamed Star Sports 2 on 1 January 2014.
In the wake of 2011 News Corporation scandals, the original News Corporation was split into 21st Century Fox and the new News Corp on 28 June 2013, with the television businesses going to 21st Century Fox.
In October 2013, 12.15% of share in Phoenix Television held by 21st Century Fox was sold to TPG Capital for HK$1.66 billion. This and 2014 sale of Star China Media marked 21st Century Fox's exit from Mandarin entertainment television market in mainland China.
By 2014, Fox International Channels Middle East took over the distribution of Star World, Star Movies, National Geographic-branded channels, Fox-branded channels, Channel V International, Baby TV and Sky News in the Middle East and North Africa from Star Select.
In January 2016, the company's parent unit, Fox International Channels, was announced to be split into three divisions, which would see the heads of newly renamed Fox Networks Group Europe, Fox Networks Group Latin America and Fox Networks Group Asia all reporting to CEO Peter Rice and COO Randy Freer at Fox Networks Group in the United States, thus abolishing Fox International Channels as a separate unit from 21st Century Fox's television business in the U.S. Accordingly, the company changed legal name to Fox Networks Group Asia Pacific Limited on 29 February 2016.
On 5 December 2017, Star India's Chairman and CEO Uday Shankar was appointed as 21st Century Fox's president for Asia, and the President of Fox Networks Group Asia would report directly to Shankar.

Disney ownership

With the acquisition of 21st Century Fox's entertainment assets by The Walt Disney Company, FNG Asia Pacific, as well as Star India, became a part of Disney and FNG Asia were integrated into Walt Disney Direct-to-Consumer & International unit. Fox Network Group Asia was split into three, as to plug into the Disney International structure with offices in Shanghai, Mumbai and Singapore. The reconfiguration and layoff began on 29 June 2020 with layoff focused on FNG Asia's Hung Hom, Kowloon headquarters, which dates back to the 1993 acquisition by a 21st Century Fox predecessor of PCCW.

List of channels provided

Current

Removal of BBC WSTV from line-up

The BBC and Star TV originally signed a deal that the Hong Kong operator would carry the BBC channel for 10 years. But in March 1994, the BBC and Star TV reached a deal after an out of court settlement, that would gradually drop BBC World Service Television from the satellite broadcaster's offerings. BBC WSTV would be dropped from the channel line-up for the Northeast Asia by mid-April that year, but would be available in the rest of Asia until 31 March 1996. The deal came after such demands from the government of the People's Republic of China.
It is alleged that the PRC government was unhappy with BBC coverage of China, and Murdoch's September 1993 speech which declared " have proved an unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes everywhere... satellite broadcasting makes it possible for information-hungry residents of many closed societies to bypass state-controlled television channels", so the Beijing government threatened to block Star TV in the huge mainland Chinese market if the BBC was not withdrawn. The former prime minister Li Peng requested and obtained the ban of satellite dishes throughout the country.
There were also reported concerns surrounding editorial control of BBC WSTV after News Corporation's acquisition of Star TV.
The subsequent removal of the BBC channel, and many ensuing declaration from Murdoch, led critics to believe the businessman was striving to appease the Chinese government in order to have the ban lifted. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting gave Rupert Murdoch a mock award titled "P.U.-litzer Prize" for "Media Hypocrite of the Year" in 1994.
In 2001, the BBC and CITVC signed a deal which would make BBC World available to "upmarket hotels, as well as guest houses and foreign apartments" in mainland China.