Advanced Television

Peacock’s feathers will be bright – but expensive

Comcast unveiled its Q4 numbers on January 23rd, and reported earnings rising an extremely healthy overall 26 per cent helped by broadband growth. The downside drag was its entertainment unit NBCUniversal as well as miserable box office revenues for its latest movie, Cats, and a 49 per cent fall in its film unit’s profits. Chairman/CEO […]

January 24, 2020

Skylo one to watch for satellite IoT

Skylo has just raised a total of $103 million (€92.9m) in Series B funding for its proposed Internet of Things satellite-based service. Skylo had been in ‘stealth’ mode and according to Skylo, the company will bring instant, affordable and ubiquitous Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity to millions of machines, sensors and devices, even in the […]

January 23, 2020

Bank foresees “weak” Q1 from Netflix

Comments from media analysts at investment bank Exane/BNPP suggest that Q4 results from Netflix were very much in line with expectations, and certainly few could complain at paid subscriptions growing 21 per cent year on year. Globally the streaming service beat net paid additions expectations by adding of 8.8 million in the quarter-year, vs consensus […]

January 22, 2020

EGNOS saved on crippled satellite

Last week’s news that Eutelsat 5 West B could only work at about half-capacity because of a failed solar array had one important slice of good news. The ‘hosted payload’ on the craft which comprised the GEO-3 apparatus needed to provide a portion of the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay System (EGNOS) is still working nominally. […]

January 21, 2020

Bank: “CBA back on track”

Last week a fresh submission to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was made by the C-Band Alliance. Investment bank Exane/BNPP has issued its own review of the action, and says “CBA is back on track” with its new proposal. Moreover, the bank’s satellite analyst Sami Kassab has rated both SES and Eutelsat as “OUTPERFORM” stock. […]

January 20, 2020

Eutelsat half-rescues a satellite

Eutelsat 5 West B satellite, which was launched in October 2019 with one of its solar arrays non-functioning, has been saved. Eutelsat has confirmed the problem but says about 45 per cent of the satellite’s planned capacity can still be used. The satellite is insured for €173 million. The satellite will come into service later […]

January 17, 2020

OneWeb, SatixFy to offer digital beam-hopping

OneWeb, which will launch its first major batch of 30 satellites on Februay 7th, has linked with UK-based SatixFy to add a digital technology pathway payload that will include a full digital payload into OneWeb’s launch schedule during 2021. This new technology will pave the way for satellites with a higher level of flexibility to […]

January 15, 2020

SES & Eutelsat “merger prospects higher”

A research note from Deutsche Bank in anticipation of the upcoming end-of-year results from SES (due on February 26th) again talk up a merger between SES and its smaller rival Eutelsat. The bank’s media analyst Laurie Davison says he now sees the prospects of a merger between the two satellite operators as “higher” and cautions […]

January 14, 2020

SpaceX to blow-up Falcon 9 rocket

SpaceX is due to launch one of its Falcon 9 rockets from a Cape Canaveral launch pad on January 18th.  So far, so normal. It will fly of some 88 seconds but then the plan is to explode the rocket. This deliberate move is designed to test SpaceX’s Crew Dragon accommodation capsule. The explosion will […]

January 13, 2020By Chris Forrester

“The worst is yet to come” for European TV

A major pan-European review of media stocks going into 2020 from investment bank Exane/BNPP gives high marks for Europe’s two major satellite operators SES and Eutelsat, saying that it sees a positive risk reward heading into the C-Band resolution at both SES and Eutelsat. Elsewhere in Media the bank says it remains cautious on European […]

January 10, 2020