Satellite TV channel "The Buddhist" launches today

The Buddhist television channel known as the "The Buddhist" will be launching today and it will be available on Dialog TV also from today.

This channel broadcasts from a state of the art studio at the Sri Sambodhi Viharaya which was donated by the father of DTH in Sri Lanka, Mr. Muhunthan Canagey former CEO and founder of CBNsat (now Dialog TV) and technical expertise has been provided by Dialog TV.

This channel is the first religious channel on Dialog TV and the first out of a total of two religious channels that have been planned, the other channel being God TV. These channels are part of an overall expansion project being carried out by Dialog TV. The other new channels already available on Dialog TV are Ten Sports, Hallmark, HBO Hits, Neo Sports, Neo Sports Plus and Australia Network. In addition NDTV, God TV, HBO Family, SRTV are expected to be launched by tomorrow and the Star Package containing Star World, Star Movies, Star Plus and Star Vijay within the first two weeks of July.

Dialog TV also introduced the cheapest pay connection in Sri Lanka with only a rental of Rs 100/=.

"Pirate Master" Brand New Reality show to premiere on AXN

"Pirate Master" a brand new reality show by the creator of Survivor, Mark Burnett will be premiering on AXN on July 11th 2007 at 6:30PM Sri Lanka Standard time. The show premiered on American network CBS on May 31st 2007.

Pirate Master features 16 contestants who have to find buried treasure and the series contain authentically recreated pirate ships and elaborate costumes. To read more about the show please visit the link "Ahoy Pirate Master".

Mark Burnett who is called the father of reality shows and the immensely popular Survivor caused such a stir in the entertainment industry that many production companies took to the business of producing reality shows.

AXN East Asia is available in Sri Lanka on all locally operated pay television companies.

It is very unfortunate that many FTA channels in Sri Lanka do not premiere reality shows and only a few them are telecast on channels such as Art TV and ETV.

"24" on Shakthi TV & Channel One MTV

The hit television series "24" commenced yesterday June 24th on Channel One MTV and Shakthi TV at 10pm. The last season was being telecast on the earlier Shakthi/MTV combined frequency and as soon as the channels were allocated separate frequencies many missed the last few episodes due to coverage issues. However this time the management have decided to air the series on both channels to benefit those who do not have reception of Channel One MTV.

Yesterdays first episode commenced on Shakthi TV first and then later on Channel One due to "Nothing Personal" finishing late. Both channels are having different copies of the same programme and are airing them separately. Almost every Sunday "Nothing Personal" finishes late and those who do not watch "Nothing Personal" can tune to Shakthi TV since they started the programme on time. Well at least yesterday they started on time.

It's great to see that the management of MBC/MTV took the dual airing decision in the interest of the fans of "24" in Sri Lanka. Well done and it will be even better if they can reduce the size of the tamil subtitles of "24" on Shakthi TV.

Art TV stop Apprentice rerun and show new series

Many fans of the hit reality television series The Apprentice were disappointed when Art TV started airing a rerun of the 2006 season of The Apprentice (from Friday 22nd June 2007) when there were expectations that they will air the 2007 season. The friday 9:30pm to 10:30pm time belt was being used by Art TV to telecast reality shows since last year. First they aired the 2006 series of Apprentice from mid 2006 till end 2006 and after taking a break for the 2006 Christmas season the time belt was used to air Survivor from early 2007 until a few weeks ago.

We hope that Art TV will take steps to halt this rerun and introduce the latest series.

The Apprentice is also telecast on pay television via Star World which is available on LBN, Comet Cable, Multivision operated pay television comapanies and by the end of this month Dialog TV will also carry Star World.

Dharmavahini - a Buddhist Television Channel

It seems that Sri Lanka's first Buddhist Television channel is now on air. This channel can be obtained via satellite and it seems that LBN is carrying the Dharmavahini signal on their pay television network. This channel is operational from 7am to 4pm on a daily basis.

We are unable to find any information regarding this channel on the internet and anyone who has is welcome update us with them.

Dialog TV is also planning to introduce a Buddhist channel called "The Buddhist" on their network very soon.

"The Apprentice" commencing on June 22nd

We happened to catch a trailer on Art TV which seems to advertise the return of the hit reality television series "The Apprentice" from Friday June 22nd on Art TV. The trailer however carried scenes from the previous season that was shown.

Since as of last year Art TV have used the 9:30PM - 10:30PM time band for the broadcast of reality shows. We hope that Art TV will be telecasting the latest series of the Apprentice from this friday onwards.

Anyone who has more information about this news is welcome to comment.

"24" on commencing June 24th?

A billboard at Borella seems to indicate that hit television series "24" will be returning to the screens of Channel One MTV from June 24th onwards. We are however unable to confirm this since we were unable to watch any trailers (or we missed the trailers) of this programme on Channel One MTV.

We believe that they will be telecasting the latest season that just concluded in the US on the Fox Network. Since the June 24th is a Sunday we are also lead to believe that the broadcast will commence at 10:00PM.

Anyone who has any more information about this is welcome to comment.

LBN one year on.......

June 15th 2007 marked the first year anniversary of the sealing of LBN and we have a special post on the LBN Forum titled "LBN One year since that fateful day......".

The sealing of LBN resulted in the creation of the LBN Forum.

LBN was sealed for a time period from June 2006 to January 2007 and included several legal battles during the said time period. Subscribers, Employees and the Management of LBN were affected adversely during this time period.

Please read LBN Forum for further information.

E FM Radio launches website

One of Sri Lanka's English Language Radio Station E FM Radio have launched their website on http://www.e-radio.fm/

The website contains a webcast which makes E FM one of the few English Language stations that have a webcast.

This is the first website by E FM and we believe that E FM which has been struggling in the market dominated by TNL Radio, Sun FM, Yes FM, wants to make a comeback into the industry.

Yes FM Morning Show: Mark has supposedly left and the show drops in quality

Yes FM Morning Show which was arguably the best morning show in Sri Lanka had listeners glued to it, mainly because of the quality of the hosts Shaq and Mark. Yes FM found the right combination and the chemistry between the two was excellent, this was a combination that was unmatched by any radio station.

Sadly Mark was suddenly not heard on the morning show and according to information that we are receiving it seems that he left without saying goodbye. According to the co host Shaq it was a career move by Mark and regret was expressed because Mark did not inform the morning show community. Other information suggests that he will be making a return on July 1st and Mark is supposed to be on leave, there are rumors that he had an argument with someone and this resulted in him leaving. We are unable to confirm any of this but we hope that anyone who has more information will share them here and explain the fate that befell Mark.

We heard Shaq mentioning on the show that a new and better morning show is being planned and information will be released as the launch date is being approached.

On the topic of the morning show, we wish to state that the Sun FM morning is pathetic. Shri and Nilan were a better combination that the present two being Shri and Eric (hopefully we got the name right).

First Year commemoration of the sealing of CBNsat (Dialog TV)

Exactly a year ago on June 6th 2006 (6/6/6) at approx 9:01pm, CBNsat (now known as Dialog TV) was unfairly and unjustly sealed by the authorities.

As a commemoration to this event we have enabled comments on the CBNsat Forum. There is also a special post on the Dialog TV forum - One Year ago on a day like this (6/6/6) commemorating this event. This marked the darkest period in the pay television industry that spanned a period from June 6 2006 upto the day LBN recommenced transmissions.

In just about a week we will be commemorating the sealing of LBN.

Is Raja FM making a comeback?

On the frequencies occupied by Raja FM previously FM 101.3 and 95 there are test transmissions going on indicating that some radio channel will commence operations on that frequency. According to unconfirmed reports that we got it seems that Colombo Communications Limited which is owned by EAP Group has been granted the license to open another radio station.

It looks like the same frequency has been allocated to them to start another radio station. However we are unable to confirm this.

We hope that anyone who has more information on this will comment and give us more information.