ITV

Tag: Stan Grant

  • Brand New Australia Channel to launch in Asia

    Brand New Australia Channel to launch in Asia

    MUMBAI: Australian News Channel and Lightning International has announced the launch of Australia Channel, which will have Australian news, business and sport, backed by the resources of Sky News Australia, a joint venture of Australia’s free to air networks Seven and Nine, and BSkyB.

     

    Available from 1 November 2014, the channel will deliver 24/7 coverage of news, business and sport, directly from Australia’s state capitals and beyond, to audiences across Asia and around the globe.

     

    Speaking during the annual CASBAA Convention, Australian News Channel CEO Angelos Frangopoulos commented, “Our production centres across Australia are committed to produce high-quality news, business, weather and sports programming in real-time for our viewers to Australia Channel. We are excited to be working with James Ross and the team at Lightning International to deliver the channel to partner operators across Asia and beyond.”

     

    Former CNN anchor Stan Grant will get together with many other notable Australian news anchors to deliver coverage from Australia’s Parliament in Canberra, the commercial centres of Sydney and Melbourne, the Australian Stock Exchange, and the nation’s most famous sporting venues. 

     

    The new service will include comprehensive coverage and updates of Australia’s favourite sports including AFL and NRL, national and international cricket and horse-racing spectaculars such as the annual Melbourne Cup. 

     

    Lightning International CEO James Ross added, “Angelos and his experienced news and production teams have a vast experience of producing channels customised specifically for their audiences, as well as delivering timely content, in a fresh and exciting way. We are looking forward to a long relationship with this fantastic new channel, which has great opportunities ahead of it.” 

     

    The channel will be distributed by content distributor and consultancy Lightning International, based in Hong Kong. Depending on territory, Australia Channel will be available as either a premium channel, or formatted for a broader audience. 

     

    Australia Channel will be aimed at Australian Expats and a wider audience of those interested in Australia and may be located across North Asia, South East Asia, the Pacific Islands and the Indian sub-continent.

  • CNN expands to Afghanistan, China, UAE with new appointments

    CNN expands to Afghanistan, China, UAE with new appointments

    MUMBAI: In a bid to expand its coverage and reach across Asia and the Middle East, CNN Worldwide is adding three new international correspondents in Afghanistan, China and the United Arab Emirates.

     

    The announcement was made by CNN senior VP president international newsgathering Parisa Khosravi.

     

    Over the past 12 months, CNN has appointed more than a dozen correspondents in seven new locations as part of an aggressive content ownership strategy. These latest hires boost CNN’s international newsgathering locations to 33.

     

    Khosravi says, “The resources available to CNN’s international newsgathering team have never been more robust. By adding correspondents in these three strategic areas, CNN underscores its international newsgathering heritage.”

     

    In Kabul, Afghanistan, Atia Abawi will serve as correspondent. He will be responsible for covering the country and the on-going war there. Abawi, a former assignment editor and producer for CNN’s international desk in Atlanta, joined CNN in 2004 and has worked on a number of stories including the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the Afghanistan-Korean hostage situation and Youssif, the young Iraqi boy burned by insurgents in Iraq.

     

    Meanwhile, Stan Grant has returned to CNN after spending two years in Australia and will take up the new post of UAE-based correspondent. He will serve to cover both the UAE and the surrounding region from his base in CNN’s new Abu Dhabi newsgathering and production center slated to open later this year. Previously, Grant served as a Hong Kong-based anchor for CNN International and later as the network’s Beijing-based correspondent, where he gained recognition for his exclusive coverage of the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka in the aftermath of the South Asian tsunami.

     

    Emily Chang, who joins John Vause as the second correspondent in Beijing, boosts CNN’s presence in China at a time when many media outlets are reducing their coverage in the post-Olympic climate. Chang has already reported on a variety of stories including the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the tainted milk scandal and the effects of the global financial crisis on China.

     

    Over the past year, CNN has also announced the opening of newsgathering operations in Chennai, India; Lagos, Nigeria; Mumbai, India; Nairobi, Kenya; and Santiago, Chile, where CNN Chile launched late last year. In addition, CNN has placed correspondents in Istanbul, Turkey; Islamabad, Pakistan; Johannesburg, South Africa; London, Great Britain and Tokyo, Japan.

  • CNN to report on Asia’s pollution crisis

    CNN to report on Asia’s pollution crisis

    MUMBAI: CNN correspondents will report from across Asia on the most polluted cities in a half-hour focus on the continent’s environmental crises and the threats they pose to the rest of the world in Ill Wind: Asia’s Pollution Crisis. The special airs on 4 June at 4 30 pm and 11 30 pm.

    Anchored by Anjali Rao from Hong Kong, Stan Grant, Jill Dougherty, Ram Ramgopal, Atika Shubert and Kristie Lu Stout analyse both the causes and effects of pollution in reports from India, China, Hong Kong, Japan and the US.

    Ramgopal reports from New Delhi which, despite having won praise for converting its public transport fleet to less polluting natural gas, is now under assault from a two wheeled traffic boom.

    The journey continues towards the west coast of the United States where Kristie Lu Stout reveals how pollutants from Asia are beginning to be detected in the air and water.

    In a sign of how things may improve, Tokyo bureau chief Atika Shubert reports from Kawasaki, a city that was once a “pollution nightmare” that has transformed itself into an “eco-town”. The city’s environmental model aims to strike a rare balance between the needs of development and growth while greatly reducing pollution.