SES to absorb MX1?
September 23, 2019
By Chris Forrester
Satellite operator SES is set to “probably” bring in house its MX1 playout and content delivery division.
Deepak Mathur, EVP/Global Sales for SES Video, is quoted by Faultline Online saying that the Unterfoehring, near Munich, playout and services division would probably be brought back together with the MX1 branding phased out.
If correct, this reverses the previous separation from SES and its former ‘Platform Services’ division, which itself had been Astra Platform Services and which today continues its support of content management, playout (OTT and DTH), encryption, multiplexing, satellite uplinks and other digital TV media broadcast services for the broadcast industry.
July 2016 saw SES complete its acquisition of RR Media (which SES bought for $242 million), and the decision to bring the Israel-based business together with ‘Platform Services’ and form MX1. MX1, however, suffered a degree of insider fraud from senior management which became the subject of legal actions valued at €15 million in January 2017. Avi Cohen, CEO at the new combined business was replaced by long-term SES staffer Wilfried Urner as CEO in October 2017.
MX1/SES Platform Services was originally called Digital Playout Centre and was founded by Leo Kirch to support its German pay-TV service, Premiere (and which still operates just a few metres from MX1 as Sky Deutschland.
This consolidation, if correct, continues a recent trend at SES where low-performing offices have been closed (South Africa and Spain) and some key businesses brought fully under the SES umbrella (notably YahLive which served the Middle East’s Arabic and Farsi speaking regions).