Midlands Asian Television
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MATV (Midlands Asian Television) is a specialist
Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...
n content TV channel based in
Wembley Wembley () is a large suburbIn British English, "suburb" often refers to the secondary urban centres of a city. Wembley is not a suburb in the American sense, i.e. a single-family residential area outside of the city itself. in the London Borou ...
,
England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
featuring
India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
n programming in
Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...
, English, Gujarati and Punjabi.


MATV


MATV Channel 6

MATV Channel 6 was broadcast in Leicester on
UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter ...
Channel 68 (frequency 847.25
MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base u ...
- Horizontally polarised) from 27 May 1999 until late 2009. It was also available on Virgin's analogue cable network in the Leicester area on channel 46 until 1 February 2010, when the analogue cable service was switched off in the area. The channel was also available on
Virgin Media Virgin Media Limited is a British telecommunications company which provides telephone, television and internet services in the United Kingdom. Its headquarters are at Green Park in Reading, England. It is owned by Virgin Media O2, a 50:50 ...
's digital cable network on channel 823 in the Leicester area, until March 2010 when the feed was switched to MATV National. The majority of programmes are against Pakistan, based locally such as talent show Manoranjan, news show Leicestershire In Focus and coverage of religious events in the city such as the
Diwali Diwali (), also called Deepavali (IAST: ''Dīpāvalī'') or Deepawali (IAST: ''Dīpāwalī''), is the Hindu festival of lights, with variations celebrated in other Indian religions such as Jainism and Sikhism. It symbolises the spiritual v ...
celebrations on Belgrave Road (also known as the Golden Mile) and Melton Road which are the biggest Diwali celebrations outside India and
Vaisakhi Vaisakhi, also known as Baisakhi or Mesadi, marks the first day of the month of Vaisakh and is traditionally celebrated annually on 13 April or sometimes 14 April. It is seen as a spring harvest celebration primarily in Punjab and Northern In ...
's Nagar Kirtan. The shows were primarily local based and produced at their Woodboy Street studios in Leicester.


MATV National

MATV National broadcasts
free-to-air Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscri ...
on
Sky The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the planetary surface, surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere of Earth, atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from ...
channel 711. Between March 2010 and 19 May 2011 that channel was also available on Virgin Media channel 823 in Leicester. The channel was affiliated with
SAB TV Sony SAB is an Indian Hindi-language general entertainment pay television Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to Subscription busi ...
when it launched on 15 September 2003, however in 2005, SAB TV was taken over in India, and the UK branch of SAB TV (located in
Wembley Wembley () is a large suburbIn British English, "suburb" often refers to the secondary urban centres of a city. Wembley is not a suburb in the American sense, i.e. a single-family residential area outside of the city itself. in the London Borou ...
) became known as MATV National. The channel was also affiliated with India's Sanskar TV until June 2010. From March 2010, 30 hours of airtime per month was sold to Gateway TV, a Christian TV channel, broadcasting at 20:00.


Additional channels


Kama Sutra

During 2006, MATV attempted to launch the UK's first Asian adult channel, called
Kama Sutra The ''Kama Sutra'' (; , , ; ) is an ancient Indian Hindu Sanskrit text on sexuality, eroticism and emotional fulfillment. Attributed to Vātsyāyana, the ''Kamasutra'' is neither exclusively nor predominantly a sex manual on sex positions ...
. Although MATV refused to comment on the channel, a broadcasting licence was issued by Ofcom, which was later transferred to MATV Music.


MATV India

On 11 March 2010, MATV announced its intention to expanding to Asia with MATV India. MATV India would be carried by cable operators in various parts of Asia, including India, uplinked by Thaicom 5. In February 2011, MTunes, a Hindi music station was launched instead.


MATV Music

On 6 November 2007, announced their intention to launch a 24-hour free-to-air music channel called MATV Music and began testing on
Eutelsat Eutelsat S.A. is a French satellite operator. Providing coverage over the entire European continent, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Americas, it has been the world's third-largest satellite operator in terms of revenues. Its subsidiary E ...
's 28A satellite at 28.5°E. Later it was revealed that the channel would initially be called Iqra TV, with programming from Indian channel Music India and a launch date scheduled for 19 November 2007. On 5 December 2007, Music India launched on Sky channel 829, using the bandwidth previously used for the Iqra TV tests and still carrying the Iqra TV label, with MATV providing distribution. On 7 January 2008, the channel was relabelled Music India and was officially launched.


Sukrit

On 2 November 2008, Harjap Singh Bhangal confirmed rumours that MATV was in talks to start a 24-hour free-to-air Punjabi religious channel called Sukrit. The new channel was expected to launch in January 2009 subject to EPG space on Sky. Rumours suggested that the broadcaster was in talks with numerous Punjabi channels in India including PTC Punjabi for content sharing. A broadcasting licence was granted by
Ofcom The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, internet, telecommunications and mail, postal industries of the United Kingdom. Ofcom has wide-rang ...
under the name MATV(Punjabi). The channel never launched.


References

{{Use dmy dates, date=April 2020 Television channels in the United Kingdom RSL television channels British Indian mass media Television channels and stations established in 1999 1999 establishments in England