Phoenix flies on Eutelsat 9A
June 5, 2012
By Colin Mann
Media management and global content delivery specialist GlobeCast has signed a deal with Phoenix Chinese News & Entertainment Ltd (PCNE) to deliver Info News — one of the broadcaster’s premier news channels — to continental Europe via the Eutelsat 9A (formerly Eurobird 9A) satellite.
Phoenix will bring Info News, already present in Asia and the United States, to the European market for the first time with this launch, giving the channel access to a potential five million homes in the footprint of the Eutelsat 9A craft.
The Eutelsat 9A satellite located at 9° East provides satellite TV homes across continental Europe with a diverse range of channels including a growing offer for Asian communities. Its proximity to Eutelsat’s popular Hot Bird satellites also enables Info News to tap into the significant direct-to-home audience at Eutelsat’s popular Hot Bird video neighbourhood. The channel will propose reception from both neighbourhoods using the Eutelsat-developed ClipSat add-on to a satellite dish.
GlobeCast receives the Info News feed via a dedicated fibre link between PCNE’s facility in the UK and GlobeCast’s central London technical operations centre. From there, GlobeCast provides uplink to Eutelsat 9A.
Info News is the first channel to report news across the Greater China region, which includes Mainland China, Macau, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. This channel was established on January 1, 2001 as a 24-hour channel on news updates and financial highlights worldwide. It also features commentary and analysis on current issues and topics.
GlobeCast has a longstanding relationship with PCNE, delivering the company’s flagship channel to the Sky platform in the United Kingdom since 2005.
PCNE’s predecessor channel, China News Europe, launched in 1992 on Eutelsat F1 at 13° East as a part-time service using night-time hours leased from Super Channel, before moving to Astra’s analogue craft positioned at 19.2° East in the mid-1990s rebranded as Chinese News and Entertainment, thereafter moving to Sky’s digital DTH platform and being acquired by Phoenix Satellite Television.