Hong Kong – ITV Studios Global Entertainment announced Asia’s newest general entertainment channel Granada TV has been picked up by the South East Asia’s largest pay TV operator, Astro All Asia Networks. Granada TV is available to all 2.8m Astro subscribers as part of the Astro Family Pack, starting 21 December 2009. Granada TV offers a strong line up of contemporary dramas, comedy, cutting-edge reality programming and the best in talk and entertainment shows. The channel is part of, and draws upon the programming portfolio of ITV Studios Global Entertainment. Henry Tan, chief operating officer at Astro said, “Our channel portfolio delivers to our customers a broad range of entertaining and high-end programming from around the world. As a tribute to our customers for their continuous support of Astro, we are pleased to offer Granada TV on our platform. We are happy to announce that Granada TV will be available to all our viewers starting from 21 December 2009. The channel contains many of the UK’s best shows and we are sure our growing audiences will enjoy what this exciting new channel has to offer.” James Ross, regional director – Asia, ITV Studios Global Entertainment said, “The launch of Granada TV on Astro caps off a terrific year in distribution for the channel and follows our recent launches in Korea, Singapore and Thailand. Being a part of the Astro DTH platform is also a further endorsement in our channel proposition of fresh contemporary entertainment, drama and reality programming… The footprint of Granada TV continues to grow with more carriage agreements to be announced at the start of 2010.” Programmes available to Astro viewers in early 2010 include: Prime Suspect, Super Agents, The Crunch, and the Royal Variety Performance 2009.