With effect from 1st Feb Star Movies India will no longer be available in this region on licensed pay TV service providers. This means that many viewers in Sri Lanka will lose access to the movies that are broadcast on Star Movies India. However these same movies are broadcast on Fox Movies Premium which is available in Maldives and not in Sri Lanka.
We hope Dialog TV appeals along with the other licensed providers to Fox International Channels to allow Fox Movies Premium SD & HD in Sri Lanka.
We are not sure how the inclusion of Star World Premiere HD will play out since Warner TV Asia, AXN Asia & Universal Channel Asia have access to some programming available on Star World Premiere too. In a matter of time maybe we will know who pulls out owing to this clash in territorial rights.
Star World Premiere HD is good but this leaves Dialog TV without a HD movie channel, if they couldn't get hold of Fox Movies Premiere HD maybe they should have gone with HBO HD. Just saying.
However the replacement of Star Movies India SD with MGM Channel isn't a good move, originally it was supposed to be Sundance Channel, MGM is better of course. This has got to be MGM India, since everywhere else MGM is known as AMC. This channel is available in India too on one DTH service provider whereas the rest carry MGM India.
MGM Channel India carries older movies unlike Star Movies which at least premieres a movie once a month if not a week. For those who like to watch the newer box office hits we are left with good old HBO Asia. Guess it's back to torrents for many of us, Fox/Star should be responsible for this rise in piracy.
The other blank space is Australia Plus, this channel is off air for the longest time and probably has called it quits for this region. Dialog should now move on to some other channel, it's time to let go. Anyway this channel lost all class after it was rebranded to Australia Plus from being known as Australia Network.
We hope we will see Fox Movies Premium in Sri Lanka on Feb 1st at least the SD version, if the HD version is too expensive. Hopefully Star will make the website accessible in this region now at least.
Please keep us updated on the latest on Dialog TV as the days progress.
