Singapore – TRACE Sports has signed its first cable carriage deal in South Korea in partnership with CJ HelloVision, as the channel continues to expand around Asia and the world. As part of the new deal, TRACE Sports will be available to all CJ HelloVision premium package subscribers in each of their systems operator areas.
In an exclusive interview with TV ASIA Plus, James Ross, MD, TRACE Asia-Pacific, said “South Korea is very tough market for foreign channels, primarily because there is so much of great content coming out of South Korea, and like any country, they are very focused on their culture, programming and stuff that is in their local language. CJ HelloVision has really seen the opportunity to deliver a channel in HD that is something different and special.”
“We are very pleased to be partnering with them; they have 22 system operators under their control so we’re going to have a pretty wide distribution. We are very happy about the deal.”
Jeong-Hwan Do, Director at CJ HelloVision, said: “We are very pleased that TRACE Sports has joined the great line-up of channels already offered by CJ HelloVision. The deal complements the range of content we already have on the platform and we look forward to a long and close working relationship with TRACE.”
TRACE Sports, the first channel exclusively dedicated to sports celebrities, now reaches more than 30 million homes across 104 countries.
Speaking at the Sports Matters conference in Singapore, Olivier Laouchez, Founder & CEO of TRACE Group, said, “TRACE Sports is delighted to have entered the South Korean TV market as part of CJ HelloVision’s premium package. We firmly believe that our proposition of combining sport and entertainment will prove to be immensely popular with South Korean audiences and we hope this is the first of many deals for TRACE Sports in the region.”
Ross added: “The new deal with CJ HelloVision complements the existing distribution deals for TRACE Sports in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Mongolia, and India, which underlines our passion for sports entertainment programming in Asia.”