TV Asia Covering the world from a studio in Edison

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H.R. Shah knew exactly how to grow TV Asia when he acquired the Edison-based station in 1997: Develop programming subscribers would pay for.

News, public affairs and talk shows geared toward connecting the South Asian-American community to what’s happening around the world and with each other helped make TV Asia North America’s premier South Asian network.

And it only made sense to do it in New Jersey.

According to the 2012 American Community Survey and the latest U.S. Census, more than 200,000 New Jersey residents are of South Asian descent, with the majority being Indian-Americans.

With 32 percent of that population living in Middlesex County, TV Asia is able to source from a bilingual workforce to produce its world news broadcast in three different languages — English, Hindi and Guajarati.

Employees connected to the South Asian community — or those mainly with ties to India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka — understand exactly what their audience is looking for and how to properly evolve TV Asia’s programming into what its 300,000 (and growing) subscribers want.

But as TV Asia moves to its next goal — expanding its reach by becoming available to all on basic cable — it knows it needs to increase its coverage.

The network, which already has 22 news bureaus in the United States and freelancers around the globe, has plans to add six more bureaus in the U.S. and four in Canada.

The additions will help the network enhance its coverage to its ever-changing target audience.

“We have new immigrants whose tastes are different from those who have grown up here,” said Rohit Vyas, senior vice president and news director.

As the longest-serving Indian-American journalist in North America, Vyas said, he has had to evolve the news over three generations of South Asian-Americans.