Barclays Premier League to be telecasted in two language options

With the football season nearing Star Sports network will now offer every football fan the opportunity to cheer their favourite players and teams with Hindi commentary along with English. Entire season will be aired on Star Cricket, Star Sports and Star Cricket HD with both the language options. 

          

For the first time Star Sports Network

will air on-ground Hindi football commentary

However, Star Cricket HD and ESPN HD channels subscribers will only be offered the English feed. Star Sports has roped in some UK based Indian commentators for Hindi commentary and has launched a campaign 'Join the Game' with Indian cricket team captain M.S.Dhoni as brand ambassador.

"The decision to offer viewers a chance to switch to Hindi commentary has been on the cards for a while now", says a release from sportscaster. To build up its new offering, the sports broadcaster has launched two shows Sports Active and Super Star Football with Ankita Anand as host.

Not just commentary, Star Sports will also provide weekend magazine shows in Hindi.

Last year while launching Hindi presentation of cricket, Star India COO Sanjay Gupta had commented, "This is the need of the hour. 85% of the core viewers prefer to watch Hindi content on TV. By providing world class Hindi presentation and commentary we believe this will significantly increase the involvement with the game and have a positive impact on viewership."

This is a first for India, as STAR embarks on an ambitious mission to grow the game while focussing more on marquee matches than ever before of the Barclays Premier League.

Earlier they aired Hindi off-ground commentary of English Premier League in 2005-06 season. FIFA World Cup 2006 and Euro Cup 2004 & 2008 were also telecasted with Hindi feed on Star Sports Network.

ESPN Star used to air Hindi feeds of various sporting disciplines in late 90's with the likes of Partho Mukherjee, Arun Lal and Darian Shahidi calling the game in Hindi.

English coverage will continue as it was last season with lively discussions by an expert panel consisting of great footballers such as Micheal Owen, Andrew Cole and Roy Keane joined by John Dykes, an international sports broadcaster and host of ESPN STAR Sports' coverage of the Premier League and European football for over a decade.