Okto - History

History

• 1 September 1995 - Channel 8 began 24-hour transmission and Tamil programmes, previously aired on Channel 8, was separated from Channel 8 to form Premiere 12, which later included Kids and Arts programmes and was renamed to become Central, on 30 January 2000.

Previously, Central had 3 program belts:

1. Kids Central – a children's television channel with enriching educational & animation programming.
2. Vasantham Central – a Tamil language channel.
3. Arts Central – a channel that showcases art, cultural and largely foreign award-winning productions and incorporated a significant amount of niche programming, making the channel rather distinctive compared to the others.

• 20 October 2008 - Central was restructured. The program belt of Vasantham Central was extended to form the new Vasantham, a full-fledged Indian Channel to provide better television programmes to the Indian community of Singapore, as announced on 1 January 2008 when the Parliament of Singapore decided to expand the Tamil language Vasantham Central into a standalone Tamil language channel.

This leaves behind Kids Central and Arts Central, the other two program belts of Central remained and Central was renamed OKTO since then. OKTO took the frequecy of Channel i, a channel which went defunct since 1 January 2005. Besides broadcasting children's programmes and cultural programming, they also broadcast live sporting events (e.g., Football, Olympic Games, Asian Games, Southeast Asian Games etc.) if there is a need to, making the channel somewhat similar to SPH Mediaworks Channel i and Premiere 12.