Advanced Television

DTH/Satellite

Dubai’s MyHD makes speedy progress

Barely a year ago it started test transmissions, and went ‘live’ on May 30th 2013, yet Dubai-based all-HDTV broadcaster MyHD is making dramatic progress. CEO Cliff Nelson says that total paying subscription numbers now exceed 400,000. Their DTH universe tops 150,000, while cable makes up the difference. In a sideways dig at arch-rivals OSN, Nelson […]

March 17, 2014By Chris Forrester

Nilesat suffers more Jamming

An MBC satirical programme, specifically targeting the huge Egyptian audience on MBC’s Misr channel, was again jammed for the second week running. The signal jamming occurred on March 14th during Youssef Bernameg’s popular show, which is broadcast from Cairo. “I am not accusing anyone, but I am wondering about [Egypt’s] inability to protect its satellite […]

March 17, 2014By Chris Forrester

Russia loses $550m from failed satellite launches

Russian reports, prompted by a letter from the Russian Association of Aviation & Space Insurers, say that the total losses from recent failed satellite launches now top $550 million. Russia’s rocket launching sector has suffered a slew of problems over the past four years including catastrophic failures by its Proton and Soyuz-U rocket systems. The […]

March 14, 2014By Chris Forrester

Arianespace “ready to compete”

Arianespace is not having the best of times. Despite an unblemished record of more than 50 totally successful satellite launches aboard its massive Ariane 5 rocket, it is under extreme pressure to look extremely hard at its manufacturing processes and reduce launch prices to the commercial sector. Arianespace’s CEO, Stephane Israel, speaking at Satellite 2014 […]

March 14, 2014

A third of TV viewers overwhelmed by number of channels

Digitalsmiths, a wholly-owned subsidiary of TiVo, has published the results of its Q4 2014 Video Trends Report, which found that almost one-third (30.9 per cent) of consumers surveyed are overwhelmed by the number of channels offered to them and 88.2 per cent consistently watch the same channels. Despite the ever growing choice of pay-TV content, […]

March 12, 2014

Sat 2014: Satellite industry “must change”

The annual ‘Big Four’ gathering at the giant Satellite show in Washington (SES’s Romain Bausch, Intelsat’s Dave McGlade, Eutelsat’s Michel de Rosen and Telesat’s Dan Goldberg), delivered some powerful home truths to the industry, with each of them combining to praise the innovation that’s come from Elon Musk and his SpaceX lower-cost rocket venture, and […]

March 12, 2014

Bausch readies to step down

This past few days has seen SES president and CEO Romain Bausch start the public handover to his successor Karim Michel Sabbagh. Sabbagh, who has been a director at SES since April 2011, is currently ‘president designate’ and has been shadowing Bausch for the past four or five months, and has been visible at the […]

March 12, 2014By Chris Forrester

Arabsat takes the top spot

This past few days has seen the annual Washington get-together for the satellite industry, and which this year has given a special focus on Arabsat’s president and CEO Khalid Balkheyour as the event’s ‘Satellite Executive of the Year’. It is an award that’s well deserved and is recognition of Arabsat’s growing importance in the world […]

March 12, 2014By Chris Forrester

Arqiva supports Es’hailSat distribution

Communications infrastructure and media services company Arqiva is supporting Qatar’s first satellite company Es’hailSat to distribute Al Jazeera Media Network channels to the Middle East. Arqiva will be transmitting via two of the Es’hailSat transponders available to Al Jazeera Media Network. Es’hailSat is the first satellite company wholly-owned by the State of Qatar, providing independent, […]

March 12, 2014Nick Snow @ CABSAT

Al Jazeera pulling out of Saudi Arabia?

BBC Monitoring has published a report, sourced from the Saudi Gazette, stating that Al Jazeera’s editorial office and facility in Saudi Arabia is to be closed. The report says: “A local source at the channel said the decision to close down the Qatari satellite channel provider would be implemented within the next few days. The […]

March 12, 2014By Chris Forrester