Nimbus in cricket deal with Star

Sport marketing company Nimbus Communications have said it had struck a deal with Rupert Murdoch's Star to distribute its new 24-hour cricket channel in India.

Nimbus, which paid US$612million to secure the rights to screen live coverage of Indian cricket until 2010, said it will start test transmissions of the new channel next month. The channel will be seen in millions of Indian homes via the third party Star platform that already penetrates 96% of homes with cable in India, said Harish Thawani, the Nimbus chairman.

Indian homes with cable and satellite was estimated at 55million in 2005 and was projected to grow to 90 million by 2010, according to an industry report this year. "They [Star] will act as our exclusive distributor of cable and satellite in India," said Thawani.

Nimbus secured the live rights for India's home series earlier this year in the biggest television deal in world cricket. The scale of the deal highlighted the passion for the sport here in India, where it regularly makes the front pages, stars proliferate on hoardings and games are played out on every spare scrap of land.

Thawani declined to give financial details of the Star deal but said it was designed to lower distribution costs. He said Nimbus expected to distribute the channel directly to homes in the Middle East and elsewhere in Asia within the next three months.