U.S. media giant Time Warner plans to increase the international reach of its HBO television empire with an expansion of television offerings in Asia. The channels will be available via both wired cable services and by satellite, which is more popular in Asia than it is in the United States.

“Cable operators throughout Asia are preparing to dramatically expand channel capacity on many of their systems through digital technology,” Jonathan Spink, CEO of HBO Asia said in a World Screen News report. He said HBO plans to be one of the first programmers to take advantage of increased channel capacity.

The first new channel HOB plans to launch in Asia is HBO Signature, which is targeted to women. It is planned to debut in Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Macau and Sri Lanka by the end of the year. According to reports, HBO already has struck deals for carriage in all of those countries except Macau.

In addition to programming HBO Signature to women, the company said it plans on two other genre-based channels, but did not disclose what niches they would market toward. A clue could be to look to the U.S. where HBO’s niche channels include HBO Family for children-friendly programming and the self-explanatory HBO Comedy channel. Like the parent HBO Asia channel, along with limited original programming, the new genre channels are expected to offer top Hollywood fare dubbed into local languages.

This is the largest expansion of HBO Asia, which has been operating in Asia since 1992 and serves 25 countries, since the launch of Cinemax Asia in 1996.

For: Wikinews

With six weeks before the sixth and final Star Wars film saga, Revenge of the Sith, hits theaters worldwide on May 19, the movie studios behind the brand has launched a massive marketing and merchandising campaign. It includes toys aimed at children, collectibles for adults active in fandom and other related merchandise such as science fiction novels based in the Star Wars universe.

The 20th Century Fox and Lucasfilm studios make millions of dollars in licensing fees from toy manufacturers and promotional deals with fast-food restaurants, candy and cereal boxes. Even telephone companies are getting into the act. Cingular Wireless will be rolling out a Star Wars-themed promotion and handset downloads within the next few days, according to a company spokesman.

Sales from Star Wars tie-in merchandise has brought in much money over the years. Star Wars toy sales themed with The Phantom Menace brought in $500 million. In 2002, Attack of the Clones toy sales were $225 million, according to reports.

In January 2003, toymaker Hasbro struck the biggest licensing deal for the brand when it agreed to pay Lucasfilm $200 million in cash and stock for the exclusive rights to make Star Wars-themed toys through the year 2018. That figure does not include Lucasfilm’s percentage of the profit from each toy’s sale.

Wal-mart and Target, the two largest toy retailers in the U.S. have entire aisles devoted to tie-in Star Wars action figures, full-sized mock ups of light sabers and other more whimsical items. Hasbro is even marketing a “Darth Tater” special edition of its classic Mr. Potato Head.

The merchandise also has a literary side. Author Matthew Stover has a monetization of Revenge of the Sith as part of a multi-book deal between Lucasfilm and publisher Random House’s science fiction specialty label, Del Rey. Stover’s book has consistently been in the Top 50-most ordered books, according to Amazon.com. Other Sith-themed books released within the past few weeks include coffee table picture books and behind-the-scenes documentation detailing the making of the film.

For: Wikinews

U.S. telephone giant SBC Communications is one step closer to offering cable television to the 18 million households in its coverage area. The company announced a $195 million contract with Scientific-Atlanta Thursday to provide a video operations center and regional hubs for the new service. Under the brand name, U-verse, the SBC’s television rollout is set to launch in 2006 after field trials begin later this year.

The company is seeking the so-called “triple play,” where a telecommunications company offers voice, data and video in one bundled package. Local telephone companies like SBC have been losing business to cable TV companies, which have added telephone and Internet services in recent years.

In a slew of recent deals, SBC is looking to stop that trend. Within the past six months it has signed alliances with various technology firms to build out a fiber network to the home strategy. For instance, SBC has a $1.7 billion deal with Alcatel to build out its fiber optic network and a 10-year, $400 million, pact with Microsoft to license its IPTV technology to allow multi-channel television to steam over its Internet backbone.

In most of the U.S. only cable TV companies like Comcast have been able to offer the “triple play” of voice, video and data services. But traditional phone companies like SBC and Verizon have been upgrading their copper wire telephone networks to fiber optic. SBC says it plans to spend billions of dollars to overhaul its telecommunications network, saying the aging and brittle copper wires which were originally laid in the early 1900s do not have enough bandwidth to allow television capability.

For: Wikinews