Malaysia: Astro retains DTH exclusivity… for now
December 4, 2015
By Chris Forrester
Malaysia’s government has renewed its exclusivity agreement with Measat Broadcast, which operates the Astro pay-TV operation in the country.
The new agreement runs until the end of February 2017.
The need for a re-assessment came about because of the need to migrate Measat/Astro’s existing Broadcast Licence to the newly created Content Applications Service Provider Individual Licence.
The ‘old’ licence was issued in 1997 for 20 years.
“MBNS can continue with the pay-TV broadcasting service via satellite to the general public after 2017, but not exclusively,” the ministry said in reply to a parliamentary question.
The broadcasting ministry says that other would-be broadcasters could begin their own application for a satellite DTH licence after February 28th 2017.