MATV (Midlands Asian Television) is a specialist
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...
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 north-west Londo ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
featuring
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
n programming in
Hindi
Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...
,
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
,
Gujarati
Gujarati may refer to:
* something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India
* Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat
* Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them
* Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub- ...
and
Punjabi
Punjabi, or Panjabi, most often refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to Punjab, a region in India and Pakistan
* Punjabi language
* Punjabi people
* Punjabi dialects and languages
Punjabi may also refer to:
* Punjabi (horse), a British Th ...
.
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 (on ...
Channel 68 (frequency 847.25
MHz
The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one he ...
- 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 is a British telecommunications company which provides telephone, Cable television, television and Internet access, internet services in the United Kingdom. Its headquarters are at Green Park in Reading, Berkshire, Reading, Engla ...
'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 were based locally such as talent show
Manoranjan
''Manoranjan'' () is a 1974 Indian Hindi film directed by Shammi Kapoor. It is a remake of ''Irma La Douce''. Sanjeev Kumar plays Jack Lemmon's role, Zeenat Aman Shirley MacLaine's and Shammi Kapoor plays Lou Jacobi's. Hotel Casanova is called H ...
, news show Leicestershire In Focus and coverage of religious events in the city such as the
Diwali
Diwali (), Dewali, Divali, or Deepavali ( IAST: ''dīpāvalī''), also known as the Festival of Lights, related to Jain Diwali, Bandi Chhor Divas, Tihar, Swanti, Sohrai, and Bandna, is a religious celebration in Indian religions. It is ...
celebrations on Belgrave Road (also known as the
Golden Mile Golden Mile or The Golden Mile may refer to:
Geographical features
* Golden Mile (Belfast), Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom (UK)
* Golden Mile (Blackpool), Blackpool, UK
* Golden Mile (Brentford), Brentford, UK
* Golden Mile (Leices ...
) and Melton Road which are the biggest Diwali celebrations outside India and
Vaisakhi
Vaisakhi ( Punjabi: ), also pronounced Baisakhi, marks the first day of the month of Vaisakh and is traditionally celebrated annually on 13 April and sometimes 14 April as a celebration of spring harvest primarily in Northern India. Further, o ...
's
Nagar Kirtan
Nagar kirtan ( sa, नगर कीर्तन; ), or nagar sankirtan, is a tradition in the Indian religions involving the processional singing of holy hymns by a group in a residential area.
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is credited with introduction o ...
. 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 FTA Receiver, appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring ...
on
Sky
The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from outer space.
In the field of astronomy, ...
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 (formerly SAB TV) is an Indian pay television channel owned by Culver Max Entertainment.
History
Sony SAB was launched as SAB TV by Gautam Adhikari and Markand Adhikari under their company Sri Adhikari Brothers (thus the acronym) on ...
when it launched on 15 September 2003, however 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 north-west Londo ...
) became known as MATV National.
The channel was also affiliated with India's
Sanskar TV
Sanskar is an Indian television channel dedicated to broadcasting programs on the "''Indian philosophy, religion, spiritual solidarity, and culture''" and focuses more on devotion than spiritualism. The channel started broadcasting in June 20 ...
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'' (; sa, कामसूत्र, , ; ) is an ancient Indian Sanskrit text on sexuality, eroticism and emotional fulfillment in life. Attributed to Vātsyāyana, the ''Kama Sutra'' is neither exclusively nor predominantly ...
.
Although MATV refused to comment on the channel, a broadcasting licence was issued by Ofcom, which was later transferred to
MATV Music
MAtv (formerly Vox) is a Canadian community channels operated by the cable provider Vidéotron within the province of Quebec.
History
In the 1970s, the first community radio stations started to appear in Quebec. These were non-commercial radi ...
.
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
Thaicom 5 was a geostationary communications satellite operated by Thaicom. It was used to provide communications services to Asia, Africa, Middle East, Americas, Europe and Australia.
Overview
Thaicom 5 was constructed by Alcatel Alenia Space ...
.
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 is the world's third-largest satellite operator in terms of revenues.
Eutelsat's satellit ...
's
28A satellite at 28.5°E.
Later it was revealed that the channel would initially be called
Iqra TV
Iqraa TV also spelt IQRA TV ( ar, اقرأ ' "read") is a satellite and internet television channel owned by Saleh Abdullah Kamel's Arab Media Corporation. It was founded in 1998. The channel promotes itself as a "Muslim family's safe hav ...
, with programming from Indian channel
Music India
Media Worldwide Limited is an Indian media company based in Mumbai, India.
Owned channels
Music channels
*''Music India'' - a Bollywood music television channel that plays Hindi music. The channel had broadcast in the United Kingdom and Irela ...
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, telecommunications and postal industries of the United Kingdom.
Ofcom has wide-ranging powers acros ...
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