TARBS World TV

TARBS World TV was an Australian Subscription Television Service, broadcasting predominantly ethnic (and mainly non-english) stations into Australia. Run by Mike and Regina Boulos, TARBS commenced operations in 1995 and had around 57,000 subscribers until July 2004 when the company went into receivership.

TARBS in Receivership

In July 2004, PanAmSat a major creditor of TARBS applied to have the organisation placed into receivership due to a failure to pay their satellite transponder lease payments. Mike Boulos disputed this.

This action was while PanAmSat was briefly controlled by News Corporation, which was a major investor in TARBS' main competitor Foxtel.

PanAmSat purchased a large number of the assets including the customers Set Top Boxes from the receiver (PriceWaterhouseCoopers) in 2005 and authorised a competing subscription television provider to access and use the boxes already installed in ex-customers homes.

The Boulos' later in 2004 launched UBI World TV, a service which follows the same ideal of broadcasting ethnic stations into Australia.