Last week’s Arabsat-sponsored conference in Marrakesh heard some heavyweight criticism from broadcasters and industry officials regarding the deliberate – and massive – piracy of exclusive content by channels transmitting from Nilesat or Eutelsat-controlled frequencies. While Eutelsat is leasing the majority of these frequencies to ‘virtual satellite operators’ Noorsat and GulfSat, senior executives from MBC, Rotana, […]

Ali Ahmed Al-Kuwari, CEO of Qatar’s Es’Hail satellite operation, says that Qatar will shortly be shifting their portfolio of channels including news channel Al-Jazeera, and the beIN Sport channels from Arabsat to exclusive carriage on Es’Hail-1. The impact will not be severe for viewers in the MENA region given that Arabsat’s ‘hot spot’ is at […]

Launch service provider Arianespace’s CEO Stephane Israel told a French parliamentary committee that he expects launch revenues for 2015 to reach €1.4 billion and an improvement on its 2014 numbers. Moreover, Arianespace has contracted this year to launch a further €2 billion’s-worth of rockets, and thus taking its overall backlog to more than €5 billion, […]

The telecom team of equity analysts at investment bank Jefferies wrote their latest satellite overview before the news broke that Eutelsat CEO Michel de Rosen is retiring next March.  There was good news in that the return to flight of the International Launch Services (ILS) Proton rocket launcher should mean that Eutelsat’s 36C satellite should […]

Hong Kong-based APT Satellite, which operates the Apstar fleet of orbiting craft, is ordering up the manufacture of Apstar-6C in a contract worth some $180 million. Apstar-6C is to be built by China Great Wall Industry, and the contract signed last week on the same day (October 17th) that Apstar-9 was successfully placed into its […]

Space Systems/Loral (SSL), a provider of commercial satellites, has been selected to provide a communications satellite to Azercosmos, the national satellite operator of Azerbaijan. Under the strategic agreement with Intelsat, the satellite will be located at the 45 degrees east orbital location where it will provide service in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. “SSL has […]

The past week has not been helpful for satellite operator Intelsat. During the week ending October 16th Intelsat’s share price tumbled 14.82 percent (and 30.12 per cent over the past 4 weeks).  Not helping matters is that Monday saw its CFO depart unexpectedly, and without a replacement named. Just over a week from now (on […]

Italian public broadcaster RAI is planning to launch HD versions of all of its channels by 2016 on the TivuSat DTH platform. Currently, four channels are available in HD: Rai Uno, Rai Due, Rai Tre and Rai Sport 1. According to head of the satellite unit of RAI, Daniele Rascio, from January 2016, the Rai […]

Canada-based satellite operator Telesat will see its latest satellite, Telstar-12 Vantage, launched from a Japanese site. Telstar-12 has been built by Airbus Defence & Space in Toulouse, and is ready for shipping to Tanegashima, Japan. The satellite is due to be launched in the next few weeks on an H-IIA launch rocket built by Mitsubishi […]