ProSieben subsidiary Seven.One Entertainment Grp has signed a ‘first look’ agreement with John de Mol’s content development company Talpa Concepts. The news goes down well with analysts. A report from analysts at investment bank Exane/BNPP suggests that this is positive news for Pro7. “ProSieben thus secures exclusive first access rights to all formats developed or […]

Blue Origin, the rocket business formed by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, is giving away $1 million (€854m) to each of 19 not-for-profit charities involved in space-related research. The funds have come directly as a result of the auction for a seat on the recent New Shephard space tourism rocket. The Blue Origin donation comes via […]

Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic is delaying the start of its space tourism venture until Q3/2022. Virgin Galactic, following on from the success of its flight with Sir Richard aboard on July 11th, had originally said it would start carrying fee-paying tourists early in 2022. There is a planned test-flight in September. However, Virgin Galactic […]

Charlie Ergen’s EchoStar team managed to avoid a humiliating forced ending of its plans for a global S-band service when a tiny satellite successfully “brought into use” a set of International Telecom Union (ITU) frequencies ahead of an August 10th ITU deadline. This was the ‘third time lucky’ for EchoStar given that two previous attempts […]

SES saw an impressive jump in its share price on August 4th, up 8.96 per cent to €7.07 per share (and at one point hitting €7.13) helped by favourable analyst comments and a general air of optimism backed by solid results. Steve Collar told analysts that the decline in Video division revenues was easing (“flattening […]

Another clutch of legal Motions were filed on August 2nd to Intelsat’s bankruptcy court by both parties in the bitter dispute between SES and Intelsat. Lawyers for Intelsat filed their Motion for the court to dismiss the SES demand for Summary Judgement in the SES claim, which – in essence – is demanding a 50/50 […]

North American pay-radio operator SiriusXM has priced two batches of new Senior Notes. The borrowings will be used to redeem existing debt. The two amounts are: $1 billion of 3.125 per cent notes due for repayment in 2026, and $1.5 billion of 3.875 per cent notes due in 2031 “This represents an increase of $250 […]

India’s Space Research Organisation has confirmed it is in discussions with the European Space Agency (ESA) and Israel’s Space Agency (ISA) on cooperating and identifying projects where the organisations could work together. The Secretary in the Department of Space and ISRO Chairman K Sivan held virtual meetings with DG of ISA Avi Blasberger and DG […]

London-based Inmarsat says it is looking at launching its own low Earth orbiting (LEO) constellation of satellites. But there are concerns whether the company has the satellite frequencies needed to place satellites into orbit. Inmarsat is calling the new project Orchestra and is carrying out a market assessment of likely demand but says a fleet […]

Three sets of Intelsat-related court actions will come before the courts during August. August 18th will see the adjourned hearing on Intelsat’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy disclosure statement take place. It will take place at the US bankruptcy court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The hearing will focus on Intelsat’s bankruptcy reorganisation/exit scheme filed before […]