WORLD'S LARGEST MOVIE INDUSTRY TO LAUNCH CHANNEL IN CANADATHROUGH ATN

March 13, 2001

The Asian Television Network (TSX - YTN) to-day announced a major initiative which will stimulate the growth of digital television in Canada. ATN has entered into a strategic alliance with B4U, the world's leading Indian Movie channel, to provide exclusive programming to the Hindi Movie Channel, one of the digital specialty licenses awarded to ATN by the CRTC.  There are more than 750,000 people of South Asian origin living in Canada.

B4U is the world's largest Indian Movie Channel and attracts an audience of more than 35 million in the UK, the US, Middle East, Africa and Asia. In addition to showcasing 5 movies every day, B4U will showcase fantastic programs for movie buffs such as behind the scenes, exclusive star interviews, gossip, music countdowns and a lot more. B4U will show classics like Mother India, evergreen like Sholay and blockbusters like Taal. B4U guarantees to add glitz and glamour to your lives overnight by bringing the vibrant ethos of Bollywood to your homes.

The Bombay film industry is one of the most prolific industries in the world producing over 800 films every year, even more than Hollywood. " We are very pleased with our association with B4U which has the rights for some of the biggest box office hits of Hindi cinema and also has access to brand new movies under production" says Mr. Shan Chandrasekar, President and CEO of ATN International and a pioneer of the entertainment business in Canada over the last two decades. It is interesting to note that Mr. Chandrasekar comes from a family of filmmakers. His father, Mr. K Subrahmanyam was the first to make a motion picture with sound in Southern India.

"B4U is the Indian HBO in a manner of speaking."  "We are delighted that we can now get to be ambassadors of Bollywood in Canada and even prouder to be associated with ATN who have been pioneers in television broadcasting to the NRI -Non Resident Indian Community and South Asian community in Canada for well over 20years. We are confident that B4U will become a 'CROWN JEWEL' on the ATN group of channels in Canada," said B4U's CEO Mr. Ravi Gupta, after a long stint as  Managing Director of NFDC (National Film Development Corporation in India) took over the reins of B4U Network . He has been instrumental in its rapid success since it's inception over two years ago.

ATN will offer B4U via cable and satellite across Canada on a discounted package with the existing ATN channel.

ATN is Canada's only licensed broadcaster providing 24 hours of daily television to the South Asian community in Canada. ATN has recently been granted 10 additional digital specialty licenses.

ATN is a publicly traded company; ATN trades under the symbol YTN on the TSX(Canadian Venture Exchange)

For further information on ATN please call Shan Chandrasekar, CEO at (905) 836-6460(Canada) or Jyoti Deshpande, Director of B4U Network (Europe) Ltd. at +44 208 9638415(UK).

Asian Television Network International Limited.
Tel: 905-836-6460   Fax: 905-853-5212
Email:: atn@AsianTelevision.com

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