New free-TV channel comes to Ghana

Accra, Dec. 19, GNA - Viasat 1, a new free-TV Channel, was on

Friday launched in Ghana. "We are very excited about launching our first ever TV Channel

in Africa, in Ghana," Mr Rune Skogeng, Chief Executive Officer of

Swedish-based Viasat Broadcasting G. Limited (VBGL), told

journalists in Accra. He said the new channel was available on the UHF band, adding

that viewers needed to just press the search button on their remote

control and there would be an automatic search and location of

Viasat 1. Mr Skogeng said Ghana was the 29th country in which Modern

Times Group (MTG), the mother company of VBGL, had deployed

their services adding that they had set up transmitter sites in Greater

Accra, Ashanti, Central and Western Regions. He said early next year, transmitter sites would be set up in

Northern Region to cover the northern parts of Ghana. Mr Skogeng said now the channel would provide viewers with

foreign entertainment programmes and introduce some local

programmes in future. "As part of a bigger media group we have strong and

longstanding relations with all the major Hollywood studios enabling

us to bring the very best blockbuster content to Ghana," he said. He said the company had also entered into an agreement with

some of the biggest African content owners and secured some of the

best African movies, series and current affairs programmes. Viasat Broadcasting is the TV arm of MTG and is the largest

free-TV and pay-TV operator in Scandinavia and the Baltic, and the

major shareholder in Russia's largest independent TV broadcaster,

CTC. He said the mother company MTG also operated the largest

commercial radio network in Northern Europe and was one of the

biggest Nordic players in internet retailing and content production. "We employ 3,000 people in 29 countries and have at least 100

million viewers and an annual turnover of about two billion dollars,"

he said. Mr Skogeng assured Ghanaians that at no point would viewers be

required to pay for Viasat services, saying that the company would

depend entirely on advertisers to make its money.