SpaceX again scrubbed a planned launch of SES-8 on the evening of Thanksgiving Day, November 28th in what is turning out to be a nail-biting exercise and far from stress-free for all involved. SpaceX also cancelled a launch for the satellite three days earlier on November 25th. The blame was placed on a triple set […]

A report from banker Berenberg asks whether BT Sport can win BSkyB’s glittering prize, the upcoming auction for the English Premier League. “BT,” says the bank, “in buying exclusivity to UEFA’s Champions League and Europa League football coverage, has made a statement. While it is publicly happy to be seen as number two in the […]

There’s little doubt that all broadcasters are seeking higher carriage deals from cable MSOs, but Time Warner’s CFO John Martin spelt out the specific targets at the Morgan Stanley TMT conference in Barcelona last week. “We fully intend to monetise the meaningful amount of investments that we’ve been making over a series of years in […]

I’m not quite sure what the collective noun might be for a crowded full room of financial analysts, perhaps a ‘pack’ (with apologies to the Hyenas and dogs) might do, but whatever the term, there was standing room only at Morgan Stanley’s TMT conference on this week when BSkyB’s CEO Jeremy Darroch responded to questions. […]

The upper part of New Zealand’s North Island is going dark, as far as analogue terrestrial TV is concerned, on November 30th. This includes the cities of Auckland, Northland and the region around the Bay of Plenty, and is the last part of New Zealand to switch to all-digital TV. According to local press reports […]

Dish TV’s founder and CEO Charlie Egren is again making a pitch that his pay-TV business should merge with arch-rival DirecTV. “There’s obviously a business case that [consolidation] makes a lot of sense in the satellite industry,” Ergen, the billionaire chairman and founder of Dish Network, told analysts on the company’s Q3 earnings call. “Whether […]

A proposed merger between two of India’s giant DTH players, Reliance Digital TV and Sun Direct has been called off. Reportedly the talks, only ever at a ‘preliminary stage’ broke down but there were differences over the valuation of the two businesses in regards to their eventual share of the merged company. The initial plans […]

The City of London was in two minds about the BT Sport Champions League deal when markets opened for the first time after the deal. BT was marked down and so was BSkyB, with the established broadcaster losing a sizeable nine per cent of its value. So, on balance, the market thought it was a […]

The news that BT Sport had bid almost one billion pounds for a three-year deal to cover the Champions League and Europa League football, and creating yet another record for European pay-TV soccer coverage, shocked the industry. In the process, BT Sport has knocked BSkyB out of the game. By any measure this is a […]

The USA’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARP) is planning to attempt to rescue parts from retired orbiting satellites as part of its Project Phoenix.  The DARPA scheme calls for a new satellite to be built with a remote-control arm in order to salvage useful components. DARPA has already identified about 140 satellites and is […]