SES responds to Russia carriage complaints
November 25, 2022
By Chris Forrester
SES says it has fully complied with the suspension of sanctioned Russian channels across the EU, Russia and Ukraine. When the European sanctions were passed on March 2nd, SES turned off the designated signals of specific RT channels and Sputnik across Europe immediately.
“Russia Today is delivered indirectly via the satellite from one customer in sub-Saharan Africa and one in India. In each case, the signal is encrypted and is part of a broader bouquet of channels. We have repeatedly requested that these customers remove the sanctioned channel and continue to do so,” it added.
“As a satellite operator, SES leases bandwidth to media companies and content aggregators who have permissions, licenses or registrations granted by regulators in their specific markets. In both cases, the service providers have permissions, licenses and registrations granted by relevant regulators in their specific markets. They offer the content in an encrypted format so it is only accessible to subscribers to the service. SES is not able to remove these channels without impacting tens of legitimate channels that are not subject to sanctions. Such action would likely meet with unintended legal and geopolitical consequences,” stated SES.
“SES is fully committed to implementing the sanctions imposed by the European Union as we have been since the decisions were taken, and continues to insist that the sanctioned Russian channels be removed from our satellites,” the satellite operator concluded.