Punjabi Net Joins SES Lineup

SES Americom Distributing JUS Punjabi on AMC-1 Satellite

-- Multichannel News, 12/16/2008 7:33:00 AM

JUS Punjabi, the country’s first Punjabi-language network serving the Indo-Punjabi, Sikh, and South Asian communities throughout the United States, has launched on SES Americom’s AMC-1 satellite.

JUS Punjabi provides a complete lineup of Indian-Punjabi programming, including a variety of news shows, sitcoms, live call-in talk shows, game shows and music. The new network is owned and operated by a New York-based management team led by CEO Penny Yogiraj Sandhu and executive VP Karl Khandalavala II, who together have more than 30 years of ethnic broadcasting experience in the U.S.

Punjabi is one of the most common languages across Pakistan and India and is widely spoken in other countries where Punjabis have emigrated in large numbers, including Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States.

JUS Punjabi provides a range of Indian-Punjabi programming, including news shows, sitcoms, live call-in talk shows, game shows and music. It's currently carried on Time Warner Cable in New York City as a $9.99 monthly premium channel and also is on Dish Network and Verizon's FiOS TV.

“Punjabi is spoken by well over 110 million people worldwide which puts it right up there with French and German,” Sandhu, who was born and raised in the India state of Punjab, said in a release. “It’s been a longtime goal to bring a quality Punjabi network to America, which is capable of reaching out to the large and vibrant Indo-Punjabi and Sikh communities living across the U.S.”