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Sondhi flies local colours for launch of regional digital TV

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As he prepares to launch a daring US$1 billion joint venture to transmit digital television direct to homes in the region, Thai entrepreneur Sondhi Limthongkul is playing the Asian card.

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Yesterday he warned against the danger of satellite and cable television destroying the 'root' of Asian culture and the 'Western virtue of give them what they want'.

He also highlighted the competition which the Asia Broadcasting and Communications Network (ABCN) would come up against when it started in 1998, namely Rupert Murdoch's StarTV.

'I'm not competing with them. Who the hell is Rupert Murdoch?' Mr Sondhi said. 'Next time he better knock before he comes in,' an apparent reference to Mr Murdoch's satellite operations in Asia.

Mr Sondhi told the Pan Asia Satellite and Cable Television Conference that the M Group, which owns the Asia Times newspaper and business magazine Asia Inc , thought about creating an Asian-owned regional satellite operator in 1993.

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This followed the sale of StarTV by 'our fellow Asian' Richard Li Tzar-kai to the 'very Western Rupert Murdoch'.

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