The TV5MONDE board of directors has okayed the launch of a second feed for East Asia in the first half 2009. Distributed in Asia since 1996, TV5MONDE currently offers only one channel, TV5MONDE Asie, reaching 16 million households on a 24/7 basis via cable, satellite and IPTV, and accounting for the third-largest pool of distribution for TV5MONDE after Europe (113 million HH 24/7) and Maghreb/Middle East (29 million). TV5MONDE Asie covers India, China, Japan, Australia and Korea, spanning time zones GMT+5h30 to GMT+12. With a second channel in 2009, TV5MONDE’s new signal will cover time zones GMT+8 to GMT+12 (mainly Korea, Japan and Australasia), with countries “where economic development and advanced technological environments require a specific channel with a dedicated programming and a targeted marketing approach to our operators and subscribers, all the more for a general-entertainment channel like us” says Alexandre Muller, MD for Asia. The new signal will be carried via optical fibre from Paris to Hong Kong, but in MPEG4 which is a standard better suited to new means of distribution (especially mobile) than the current MPEG2 chosen in 1995 for the current channel.