DIRECTV and News Corporation’s STAR announced the signing of a multi-year extension for continuing carriage of STAR India PLUS, STAR ONE, STAR India NEWS and VIJAY in the US. DIRECTV was STAR’s first distribution partner in the US back when the four STAR channels made their American debuts in November 2004. DIRECTV’s HindiDirect and HindiDirect II programming packages are part of the WorldDirect programming platform and are tailored toward Hindi speaking audiences within the United States. WorldDirect customers must first subscribe to DIRECTV BASIC (US$9.99 per month) or any DIRECTV base programming package ($29.99 per month or above). The DIRECTV WorldDirect platform has launched 116 channels that deliver a wide variety of new programming in multiple foreign-languages, including Spanish, Russian, Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Korean, Italian, Polish, Arabic, and Greek, to ethnic markets throughout the United States.