• by David Goetzl , May 13, 2008

As MSOs add foreign channels to their pay-TV tiers to gain and retain subscribers, satellite competitor DirecTV continues to build its international flavor.

The distributor has added a Vietnamese channel to its offerings--HONVIETV--as it looks to target the Vietnamese-American community. Among the channel's programming is original fare produced in the U.S., along with sitcoms and films from Asia.

The channel is available as part of a pay tier that runs $24.99 a month. HONVIETV is part of DirecTV's WorldDirect offering that includes 118 channels covering a range of foreign languages, from Hindi to Gujarati, Polish and Ukrainian.

MSOs--particularly Cablevision, which serves the diverse New York market--have looked to foreign-language networks as a way to gain subscribers and revenue per subscriber. The companies believe the number of video subscribers may be reaching a saturation point.