With regard to Mr Khng's feedback on the telecast of Barclays Premier League (BPL) matches, we would like to clarify that due to a contractual agreement with the content provider, all international broadcasters are only allowed to air up to 370 of the 380 BPL matches each season.

This is similar to the agreements for the telecast of BPL matches in past years. To ensure that local sports fans get the best football action in the later part of the season, we did not air one match on Jan 26, and nine mid-week matches on Jan 30 and Jan 31. This would enable us to air all remaining BPL games uninterrupted till the final match.

Next, we would also like to address Mr Shen's concerns on the removal of Asia Plus and advertisements on cable TV channels. From the feedback we have received from customers in recent years and from StarHub's own monitoring of the channel, Asia Plus has not met our expectations and it has become a less popular choice among local viewers. Hence, we had to make the decision to remove it from our channel line-up. As we are aware that there may be customers such as Mr Shen who have concerns over the removal of the channel, we are presently exploring the possibility of acquiring selected Asia Plus programmes for airing on StarHub's existing channels. For example, the more popular programme Fortune Know-it-all, which is currently on Asia Plus, will be shown on E City (Ch 56) starting from March 17.

The Chinese Entertainment Basic Group was first introduced with only two channels - E City and Asia Plus. Over the years, new channels like E City (+2) (Ch 256), STAR Chinese Channel (Ch 46) and TVB8 (Ch 53) that provide quality Chinese entertainment and infotainment programmes from Taiwan and Hong Kong were added to this Basic Group at no additional cost.

On the volume of advertisements on cable TV channels, we would like to clarify that a vast majority of the 114 channels carried on StarHub's digital platform are packaged by overseas channel partners for TV audiences in the region, and most of these channels handle their own airtime sales.

While a significant revenue source for cable TV operators and channel providers comes from subscriptions, most channels carry advertisements to help offset the high content costs. Some premium cable channels, especially movie channels like HBO, Star Movies and Celestial Movies, schedule the airing of its advertisements and trailers such that commercial breaks take place between titles and subscribers enjoy uninterrupted viewing of each programme. On the other hand, channels such as AXN and TVBS Asia have been traditionally scheduling commercial breaks in the midst of a programme. It is common industry practice for these channels in most of the markets which they have a presence. We would like to assure Mr Shen that airtime dedicated to advertisements is within the Media Development Authority's stipulated percentage of commercial airtime for the hour.

We thank Mr Khng and Mr Shen for their feedback and look forward to their continued support.

Caitlin Fua (Ms)

Corporate Communications Manager

StarHub