BritAsia TV secures exclusive rights to broadcast Indian Super League

As the Hero Indian Super League (ISL) gets underway, for the first time it will be broadcast on free-to-air Asian channel BritAsia TV. The channel secured the exclusive UK rights to the league and has executed a solution for the turnaround with its technical broadcast service partner ABS Broadcast.

ABS Broadcast already provide the channel with a variety of specialist broadcast services including playout and channel management and is now handling the operation of live turnaround for the matches.

The men’s professional football division, which is made up of 10 different teams, will run 95 games from this November through to March 2018 and reaches over 216 million viewers in India alone. The ten teams involved are Atlético de Kolkata, Bengaluru FC, Chennaiyin, Delhi Dynamos, FC Goa, Jamshedpur FC, Kerala Blasters, Mumbai City, NorthEast United and Pune City.

The rights package features five games each week, beginning with delayed ‘as live’ coverage from Wednesday to Saturday evenings, followed by a live broadcast on Sunday afternoons.

BritAsia TV reaches over 2 million viewers every month and is available on Sky (824), Virgin (840), Freeview (264) and OTT platform YuppTV.

Bilal Memon, Head of Broadcast Operations at ABS Broadcast, comments “With years of turnaround experience and an extensive connectivity reach, we’ve been able to offer the channel a very fast and smooth insertion of content directly into their existing playout daily activity. This kind of flexibility is exactly what channels need in this challenging broadcast environment.”

Managing Director of BritAsia TV, Tony Shergill, has high ambitions for the high-value property: “ISL is one of the biggest local sports tournaments in India right now and for BritAsia TV to be showcasing the games exclusively in the UK will see the channel exposed to a whole new audience. We’ve never had any live sports offerings showcased on the channel before; it’s a very exciting new addition to our content offering. Free-to-air football is a rarity these days and we’re delighted to bring one of the world’s most up and coming leagues to British audiences.”