ABS Broadcast, one of the largest independently owned broadcast and playout facility centres in Europe, has joined forces with Radio Africa to deliver sports content from leading international rights company MP & Silva.
Radio Africa Group is home to some of Kenya’s leading television and radio channels: Kiss FM, Classic 105, Kiss television, and the Bamba TV platform. The newest addition to their growing portfolio is the recently launched Bamba Sports, the first 24 hour free to air sports channel in Kenya which sits on the Bamba TV platform.
From Arsenal Media and Italian Serie A football to ATP Tennis and AC Milan programming, Bamba Sports will now see a large growth in overseas content. The project has seen ABS Broadcast’s satellite footprint grow considerably, investing in new capital expenditure to capture the large variety of sports fixtures across Europe.
Kamal Vekaria, group head of Innovation and Special Projects at Radio Africa, says that the channel’s “key challenge was turning around the content precipitously and in a cost effective way. We reached out to ABS Broadcast who came back with a great solution that took away the logistical nightmare. We see our young relationship with ABS Broadcast maturing into bigger things in the future.’
Sass Jahani, managing director of ABS Broadcast, described the partnership as beneficial to African sport: “We are thrilled to be working with Radio Africa Group to grow the newest channel in their portfolio. Bamba Sports is not only acquiring international content but it is also accelerating the growth of Kenyan sport.’
ABS Broadcast’s head of Technology, Mukund Patel, has seen this as “a great opportunity to grow on ABS’s existing infrastructure for downlinking satellite content, which in turn has also strengthened the company’s global distribution network.’
ABS Broadcast is based in London and has been in the television services industry for over 25 years. As well as offering channel playout and EPG services, they have grown their product portfolio to include media asset management, edit assistance, studio space and their very own ABSolute Broadcast Channel Management System.
