Italian broadcasting giant Mediaset has been looking to merge with its Spanish arm, Mediaset Espana. The plan was that the merger would be a step forward in its wish to create a European media giant to rival the likes of Netflix. That merger now looks unlikely. Shareholder investor adviser ISS is telling stock-holders in the […]

California-based Viasat and Paris-based Eutelsat were once extremely friendly, and still have good – formal – relations with one another although not quite as strong as a couple of years ago. The pair are bound together in a joint-venture over the use of spectrum on Eutelsat’s Ka-Sat, and while initially the joint venture was intended […]

Dish farms are massive arrays of uplink and downlink parabolic dishes in a teleport which communicate with orbiting geostationary satellites. The dishes are huge, typically measuring 7-10 metres across, and very expensive. Moreover, even the specifically designed tracking antennas (usually of about 3 metres across) are of limited use for handling signals to or from […]

The C-Band Alliance (CBA) made another filing on August 14th to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and again fired a blistering extra salvo at suggestions made by the ACA Connects Coalition (ACACC). Peter Pitsch, CBA’s Head of Advocacy and Government Affairs said: “Our Reply Comment documents the numerous timing, technological and legal flaws that various […]

SpaceX has had something of a maritime fleet from its beginnings. Its ‘Of course I still love you’ floating barge has been the landing stage for many of SpaceX flights. The second floating barge, with the giant text message saying “Just read the instructions” does a similar job usually on the Pacific. Elon Musk’s team […]

The saga of the Viacom and CBS relationship is a strange one, worthy of the most unlikely of soap operas, or the most outlandish of Greek myths. CBS gave birth to Viacom, then spun it off, then married it, then acrimoniously divorced it and, now, has married it again. In the 60s, CBS was the […]

Just about every original programme and commissioned series on Netflix is made under their ‘4K obligations’. Indeed, the OTT streamer is so tough on film and programme-makers that it will not permit original material to be shot on one of the industry’s most popular cameras, the ARRI Alexa. The rules affect ARRI’s highly-regarded Alexa cameras […]

While flying humans into space, and perhaps as far as Mars, might be Elon Musk’s ultimate goal – he is also saying to small satellite designers and operators to join his Falcon 9 club of clients. SpaceX says its new SmallSat Rideshare project will help get smallish satellites into Sun-Synchronous Orbits for ultra-low fees of […]

A BBC report that satellite mega-constellation operator OneWeb had been blocked by Russia from sending or receiving signals from its orbiting satellites, has been corrected and updated. The BBC quotes Mikhail Kaigorodov, OneWeb’s commercial director for Russia, saying: “OneWeb’s joint venture in Russia has withdrawn its application for landing rights in the Russian Federation. The […]

India’s Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) has already brought criminal actions against a number of former ISRO/Antrix staff in connection with alleged corruption between ISRO and Antrix. Antrix was the commercial arm of India’s State Research Organisation which supplies and controls all satellite active over India. In 2005 Bangalore-based Devas Multimedia quite legitimately entered into […]