Hong Kong-based Celestial Pictures has secured carriage for its 24-hour Chinese movie channel, Celestial Movies, on Hong Kong's newest pay-TV service, exTV, which launches on Feb 18 next year.

The channel, which features content from the Shaw Brothers library, Golden Harvest and several other Asian film studios, has already been launched on Astro in Malaysia and Brunei, Starhub in Singapore and Indovision and Kabelvision in Indonesia. Launches are also being planned for the rest of Asia, Australia, North America and Europe.

Celestial is a subsidiary of Astro - Malaysia's leading pay-TV operator which recently floated on the Kuala Lumpur stock exchange. The company owns 760 titles from the Shaw Brothers library, which it is currently remastering and releasing on DVD.

ExTV is operated by Galaxy Satellite Broadcasting, a joint venture between Hong Kong broadcaster TVB and US satellite services provider, Intelsat. The service will offer around 30 channels at launch including five from TVB; MATV, which screens titles from Hong Kong producer Mei Ah; HBO, Cinemax and Hallmark.

Galaxy and exTV are headed by former Foxtel chief executive Jim Blomfield.