Formation and early years The licence to operate Astro, then unnamed, was given in June 1994 and was planned to have 20 channels through the Measat satellite. It was originally planned to launch in 1995, but postponed to 1996 with the launching initially took place in October and would be known as the All-Asia Satellite Television and Radio Operator, abbreviated as ASTRO and to be operated under its operating company, Measat Broadcasting Networks Systems. The upcoming satellite TV provider will offer 22 television channels and 8 radio stations in its platform. Ahead of its launch, Astro's operator, Measat Broadcast Networks Systems expected that its satellite TV and radio services will gain profit within two-and-a-half to three years with a total of 700,000 subscriber base. Astro was launched on 25 September 1996, three months after its establishment. Upon its launch, the company planned to offer the internet speed facility to its customers by early 1997. Astro signed an agreement with
Maybank which allows its subscribers to settle their monthly fees via the autophone and autodebit services as well as via automatic bill settlement facility provided by the bank through
Visa and
Mastercard. Astro planned to open four out of seven showrooms nationwide by the first quarter of 1997. The company also planned to reach the target of 400 installations as early as January 1997. Astro also submitted its proposal to began broadcasting overseas. Two months later, the company entered a joint-venture with film production companies to produce program varieties. On 1 April 1997, Astro appointed MOCCIS Trading, a trading arm of MOCCIS Berhad, to market and promote its service to its members via a monthly payment scheme. Astro planned to establish its own private telecommunications network as part of its preparation to launch a range of multimedia interactive services as well as to increase its business reach. The company also spent RM25 million to enhance its services for domestic and global market. Astro became the first client of the Canadian telecommunication equipment company,
Nortel's Global Account programme for the ASEAN region. In July 1997, the company signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Faber Group Berhad in which Astro will provide its satellite television services to seven of Faber-owned
Sheraton hotels. From 27 September to 16 November 1997, Astro offers installation fees for its Direct-to-U system installation. It also targets at least 20,000 hotels for its pay-television operations by the year-end. In December 1997, Astro partnered with
Oracle Corporation in which the latter would help developing its web-based corporate database for its business strategy. It also allocates RM100 million to provide a Direct-to-U price subsidy to its customers. In 1998, Astro plans to expand its operations in the Philippines and Taiwan with RM200 million of allocation. The plan was later abandoned for unknown reasons.
Expansion of operations Between 2000 and 2006, Astro shared time with
TV Pendidikan, Malaysian public educational TV channel, where it shared time with
Animal Planet on Channel 28 from 2000 to 2001 and with now-defunct
TechTV on Channel 13 from 2002 to 2006. The move received much criticism from many parties, demanding that the network should remain aired on public broadcaster,
RTM rather than Astro at least until 2002. However, Astro decided to not aired TV Pendidikan upon the expiration of its 6-year agreement with the channel's operator, the
Ministry of Education, resulting TV Pendidikan moved to
TV9, owned by media conglomerate
Media Prima in 2007. In 2000, Astro's residential subscriber base have exceeded about 300,000 households in just three years after its official launch. Astro also targets a total of a million subscribers nationwide in the next two years. The company enters a joint-venture with Kristal Sdn. Bhd. from Brunei to launch
Kristal-Astro on 24 January 2000. The service, however, ceased operations 22 years later, in 2022. The company had invested over RM1 billion to build a digital broadcasting facility and developed a multimedia services. Astro also spent at least RM350 to subsidized its Digital Multimedia System (DMS) in order to make its service is "affordable for more Malaysian families". The company also planned to expand its services across Asian region. By June 2001, Astro's subscription total has increased to 600,000. In April 2002, Astro signed an agreement with
Scripps Networks Interactive for the distribution of six TV series from
HGTV in Malaysia and Brunei. By September the same year, Astro reduced 10% of its staffs under the voluntary separation scheme (VSS). The company set up a joint-venture company with Indonesian conglomerate,
Lippo Group to provide pay-TV service in Indonesia as early as July 2005. As a result, Astro's satellite TV service in Indonesia, known as
Astro Nusantara was launched in March 2006. It also invested RM500 million to support its operations in the republic. However, Astro Nusantara only operated for two years and ceased operations when Astro ended their joint-venture with PT Direct Vision in September 2008. On 1 October 2007, Astro renumbered all of its channel numbers from 2-digits to 3-digits to accommodate its expanding number of channels. In 2007, Astro dominates 29% of television viewership market in Malaysia, after
Media Prima (54%) and
Radio Televisyen Malaysia (17%). In December 2009, Astro launched its high-definition service, known as
Astro B.yond with a new decoder set and channels in HD feeds. Astro partnered with TIME dotCom Berhad in December 2010 to implementated the broadband and IPTV service in Klang Valley and Penang. In 2013, Astro signed an agreement with
Telekom Malaysia's wholly owned subsidiary, TM Net Sdn. Bhd. to broadcast two
Astro SuperSport channels on the latter's pay-TV service, HyppTV (later known as
Unifi TV).
Recent developments On 1 December 2014, Astro signed a joint-venture with South Korean retail company, GS Retail Co. Ltd. to launch a home shopping channel, Go Shop. However, the joint-venture only survived for 9 years and following the changing in consumer's shopping landscape, Go Shop ceased operations on 12 October 2023 as part of the company's "ongoing strategic realignment underway". In March 2016, Astro launched its regional video platform, Tribe, which targets to Indonesian market. In 2017, Astro enters a strategic partnership with
CJ E&M from South Korea to create and produced contents and events for ASEAN market. The company also enters a long-term partnership with print publishing company, Karangkraf to form a joint-venture company focused on content production, Karangkraf Digital 360, which was later renamed as Nu Ideaktiv. Astro alongside
Media Prima and
DiGi Telecommunications collaborated to launch a digital learning hub, known as JomStudi in January 2019. The initiative, which supported by the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), provides educational resources in a single platform which accessible to students. The company enters a partnership with Chinese streaming platform,
IQIYI in 2019, in which Astro acquired an exclusive rights to distributed the IQIYI's content in Malaysia. Astro also responsible for the latter's customer acquisition, marketing and media sales. On 1 April 2020, Astro rearranged its channel numbers in order to prioritize its 100 HD channels on its platform. In 2021, Astro partnered with
Netflix to expand its content offering in which the latter's service will be made available on Astro's platform. In May 2024, Astro and state-owned public service broadcaster,
Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM) have partnered to envisioned an initiative in support to Palestine by launching Malaysia4Palestine, a special channel dedicated to highlighting the humanitarian crisis in Palestine in the wake of the ongoing
Gaza war. The channel began one-day broadcasting on 25 May 2024. Among artistes who involved in the project were
Siti Nurhaliza,
M. Nasir,
Syafinaz Selamat,
Alif Satar,
Soo Wincci,
Sarimah Ibrahim,
Aznil Nawawi and
Wani Kayrie. On 17 October, Astro revamp its sports content lineup which will feature new names and channel numbers. The change will saw
Astro SuperSport channels which will be replaced with Astro-branded sports channels, such as Astro Premier League (primally aired
Premier League matches), Astro Football (which aired other football leagues and tournaments), Astro Badminton (primally aired all of the
BWF tournaments) and Astro Sports Plus (which aired other sporting events, such as the
NBA basketball,
UFC/
One Championship fights,
NASCAR races, among others). Astro announced on 18 November that both
Astro Warna and Astro Premier would be discontinued as a linear TV channel and merged both channels with
Astro Prima and
Astro Citra respectively, to match the Astro's new corporate branding. The merger between Citra and Premier took effect two days later, on 20 November, while the merger of Prima and Warna took effect on 3 December. Under this plan, Astro Warna and Astro Premier will exclusively operated as a content hub on Astro on Demand and Astro GO. However, Astro Warna's permanent shutdown received negative feedback from netizens which supported its closure, citing that "there is no any improvements for programmes aired" a part of programmes that aired repeatedly on the channel. On 2 December, Astro begin leasing a
ABS-CBN Corporation-owned property,
ABS-CBN Soundstage at the Horizon IT Park,
San Jose del Monte,
Bulacan,
Philippines, to increase its global footprint. At the same time, it introduced Astro One, an entertainment package which includes three new packages: Entertainment, Sports, and Epic, which "is built with a customer-first approach". On 3 December 2025,
Astro Shaw entering an partnership with
Double Vision and Philippine
ABS-CBN's
studios division to co-produce three drama television series, including the remake of 2008 action drama series
Kahit Isang Saglit which had starred
Jericho Rosales and
Carmen Soo. ==Services and products==