18 Aug – Astro Productions and Pinewood Iskandar Malaysia Studios have struck a five-year agreement with each other. The two will be collaborating to bring the best of what Malaysian entertainment has to offer to the Asean market. Astro Productions is a subsidiary of Astro Malaysia Holdings Berhad and provides media content to Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore, among others. Under the agreement, as reported by The Star, Pinewood Iskandar Malaysia Studios Sdn Bhd allows Astro the usage of two of its 12,000 square feet, High Definition television studios while Astro provides the studios necessary equipment and production services in order to produce world-class television content.
Astro will be committed to making a minimum of 4,500 hours of production each year in the first two years and 3,000 hours per year for the remaining two years. Astro and Pinewood hope that with this collaboration, more world-class Asean content programmes will be delivered to their audience. Astro is also looking to attract international studios based in Singapore as its clients. It believes the collaboration with Pinewood will open that door. The first programme to be filmed under this collaboration will be singing reality show "Nusantara Mania" which will be targeted at audiences in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.