Gas and oil-rich Qatar says it wants to launch 6 satellites over the next 10 years. Qatar is home to the influential Al Jazeera suite of television channels, and is financing its first – highly controversial – satellite for launch this coming summer. Es’Hail 1 is being built by Space Systems/Loral in a joint venture […]

The US television and film industries have revealed plans to roll out a national multimedia campaign to inform parents about the many tools that can help them manage what their children see on television and at the movies. The industries will make a positive contribution to the national conversation on violent behaviour by launching a […]

Global satellite giant Intelsat reported Q4 revenues up $19.4 million, and a slight increase in its net losses for the quarter (from -$3.4 million to -$3.7 million). Translating that into its full year position shows that revenues were $2.6 billion (up marginally from $2.588 billion, although again an improvement in net loss for the year […]

CET Teleport has signed a three year contract with SES for NSS-12 Ku-band capacity linking Europe and East Africa. CET has seen substantial demand for satellite services in this region and the East Africa beam has proved immensely popular with both operators and end-users. CET has been steadily building up its portfolio of satellite capacity […]

Not for the first time, the BBC has condemned satellite and wireless jamming of its signals. Peter Horrocks, global news director for the BBC’s World Service, again criticised the jamming of the BBC’s Persian service, but has now added China to its list of problem nations. Horrocks said that its World Service shortwave broadcasts to […]

Abu Dhabi-based satellite broadcaster YahLive, part-backed by SES, now has some 500 certified dealers and dish installation technicians working to help deliver its bouquet of HDTV channels over the Middle East and North Africa. 300 technicians were recently added from Saudi Arabia, the region’s most important market. YahLive is looking to train 2000 installer teams […]

Satellite operator SES is reporting a set of excellent numbers for the year to December 31st. Top of the list is that their contract backlog (the amount of guaranteed business) of €7.5 billion is the highest ever, and up €500 million on the same period last year. Just about all the operator’s other key metrics […]

Telesat Holdings has reported a bump in sales but a large decrease in profitability, which the company blamed on a large one-time insurance claim it received last year. The Canadian maker of broadcast satellites reported its full-year financial results, stating revenues for 2012 of $846 million, a five per cent increase over the $809 million […]

New figures revealed by Thinkbox, the marketing body for commercial TV in the UK, show that TV viewing in the UK is continuing to expand as people watch additional TV on-demand via TV sets, tablets, smartphones and laptops. In total, the average UK viewer watched 4 hours, 4 minutes of TV a day in 2012 […]