Ten Sports is a sports channel, widely popular in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Hong Kong, India, Middle East, Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and is a full-service television concern, based in Dubai Media City with eight regional offices across the sub-continent. TEN Sports made its entry as a major sports channel on the eve of the 2002 football World Cup -- they had the rights for the India region and some parts of the neighbourhood. Bukhatir Investments Limited and Zee Telefilms jointly own it.
It is now the world`s premier sports channel for South Asians, reaching an estimated 48 million homes in the Sub-continent, Middle East, and Europe & Asia. Ten Sports transmits three localized beams via the Panamsat 10 Satellite targeting India (Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bangladesh & Nepal), Middle East (Hong Kong & Japan) and Pakistan. Each beam is customized in terms of programming, scheduling, graphics, music, on-air promotions and marketing, thus providing maximum enjoyment for our viewers and a highly targeted audience for advertisers. Ten Sports is the most watched sports channel by far in the entire sub-continent. Recent viewing data shows that the channel enjoys over 50% share of viewing of sports channels in India and the pattern is repeated across the region. Ten Sports is distributed to cable operators in India by The One Alliance distribution bouquet of channels and is carried on Dish TV and Tata Sky DTH platforms.
TEN Sports is the short name of Taj Entertainment Network Sports and they regularly broadcast Test cricket, one-day international cricket, field hockey and professional wrestling, a staple of the channel`s programming. TEN Sports is the dominant sports channel in Pakistan. The channel hopes to increase its viewer ship in the country over its rival ESPN Star Sports. The channel holds the exclusive rights for WWE programming in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka and has also recently grabbed the rights for the UEFA Champions League for the next three seasons in India. Ten Sports also has the exclusive telecast rights for all cricket matches played in Pakistan. In 2004, it also bagged the telecast rights for West Indies cricket for the next five years.
Ten Sports` presenters and analysts are all well-known sports personalities including big names like Sanjay Manjrekar, Rameez Raja, Ian Chappell, Imran Khan, Ian Healy, Tony Greig and Barry Richards.
Ten Sports programming ranges from WWE to Hockey to Cricket to rugby and chat shows like the Chevrolet Cricket show by Brett Lee, WTA magazine shows, Gillette World Sports and Sports News and updates.
Ten Sports has been the only channel consistently taking on the Government of India and Prasar Bharati, the Govt. controlled television channel, when it comes to sharing of sporting telecast rights. In a squabble between Doordarshan and Ten Sports, Ten Sports also agreed to provide Doordarshan (DD) signals for the live telecast of the first one-day international cricket tie between India and Pakistan in the year 2004. Ten sports also contended that it has spent a lot of money on acquiring the telecast right from the PCB and on generating advertisements. The big money for TEN comes from the advertisers who have picked up a bulk of the inventory, even before the first ball has been bowled. TEN has also signed up two presenting sponsors for the series in Bajaj Auto and Samsung. TEN also has about seven associate sponsors, all paying around Rs 8 crore (Rs 80 million) each. The sponsors are said to include the likes of Hutch, GlaxoSmithKline, Indian Oil Corporation Hero Cycles, Pepsi, LG Electronics and Maruti. Ten sports have turned the face of Indian Television with its international presentation and appeal the day is not far when this channel will become the number one Sports channel of India.