Liberty Media owns 40 per cent of Sirius-XM and has made no secret that despite its shareholding influence over the pay-radio broadcaster, it would like to formally take ownership of the Sirius and XM operating licences. It applied to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in March for the FCC’s approval. On May 4, the FCC […]
Dish Network viewers will soon not be receiving AMC’s Mad Men top-rated series because of a heavyweight war of words between Dish and AMC’s owners over a long-standing grievance. Mad Men is produced by AMC, and AMC Networks also carries other high-profile shows such as The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad. The problems go back […]
India’s Airtel DTH broadcaster is again reporting quarterly losses of almost 2 billion Rupees (1.94bn Rupees, about $36m), much the same as its 1.95 billion loss in the period to December 31st. The loss is greater by 500 million Rupees than the same period a year ago. The accumulated losses from Bharti’s DTH division now […]
Ottawa-based satellite operator Telesat already has two satellites lined up for launch this year in the shape of Nimiq 6 and Anik G1. Nimiq 6 is already fully booked to supply TV channels for Bell TV’s DTH service over Canada and is due to launch shortly. Anik G1, which will launch later this year, is […]
Popular pan-Arab satellite channel LBC-SAT has been taken off the air in an increasingly bitter squabble between the terrestrial version of the station (Lebanese Broadcasting Company) and Saudi Arabia’s Rotana Group in which Rupert Murdoch holds a near-15 per cent stake. LBC is a very long-established, and hugely popular, Lebanese broadcaster headed by Pierre el […]
Italian DTH operator Sky Italia has invested almost €9.2 billion between 2004 and 2011, a cumulative expenditure that produced direct and indirect effects on the Italian economy estimated at €19.2 billion (1.3 per cent of GDP). This emerges from the study conducted by the Institute of Media Economics (IEM) of the Rosselli Foundation, contained in […]
Satellite operator SES has teamed up with a range of industry partners to develop SAT-IP, an IP-based satellite reception technology that demodulates and converts satellite signals to IP for further in-home distribution to any IP-enabled device. Unveiled at the annual SES Industry Days, the SAT-IP communications protocol is established as a new standard for satellite […]
King Abdul-Aziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) has selected the high-capacity Ka-band satellite system from ViaSat as the service platform for its National Satellite Data Network in Saudi Arabia based on the system’s ability to deliver exceptional broadband speeds. The KACST contract, valued at approximately $70 million, includes gateways, network operation facilities, and end […]
Charlie Ergen’s EchoStar intends moving the SES-owned QuetzSat-1 satellite from its current 67 degrees West position to 45 degrees W. EchoStar leases capacity on the satellite from SES. It had been thought that the craft would be re-located to 77 degrees West, a Mexico-licensed slot. EchoStar already operates two satellites from 77 degrees West (one […]
SES has announced that two new Bavarian TV free-to-air programmes are launching on the Astra Satellite System at the end of April. The two channels, Franken Fernsehen in Nuremberg and a.tv in Augsburg, were previously local part time programmes and now extend their offer to full time. The channels will use former analogue capacity on […]