Chris Forrester is one of the most experienced and highly regarded journalists in the field. His insight and analysis, particularly in the satellite and pay-TV arena, is highly prized. He has written for all the major business journals in the sector as well as several national newspapers.
Italy has been plagued for more than 10 years by dozens of unlicensed Italian pirate broadcasters. Indeed, they have been on air for so long that they have become part of the ‘normal’ transmission pattern. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has received many complaints from countries adjacent to Italy about interference on a total of […]
The satellite investment community has seemingly decided that shares in Intelsat are worth money. After a couple of years of depressed share prices, November 28th saw a massive 10.32 per cent jump in value to $4.17. The volume of shares changing hands was more than double a normal day’s activity. Indeed, the last three trading […]
Eutelsat has been involved for much of the past year in a dispute between the Russian government and the country’s Yukos oil and energy company. Under dispute was $400 million (€375.4m), and a portion of assets worth around $1 billion, initially seized on the orders of the French government and owed by Eutelsat to Russia’s […]
A much more positive outlook at Vivendi-backed pay-TV operator Canal Plus Group is helping Vivendi’s share price. One investment bank suggests this could add extra muscle to a long-expected ‘merger’ between Vivendi and advertising giant Havas. Key to any deal is Vincent Bolloré (chairman of Vivendi’s Supervisory Board and Canal+) who has publicly discussed the […]
The major release by Amazon Prime of the Clarkson-Hammond-May The Grand Tour motoring show, reportedly a $100 million investment, and hot on the heels of Netflix’s The Crown, again with a massive per-episode budget, is a sign of how the video industry is changing. The Grand Tour will be available in more than 200 markets […]
Eutelsat has been ordered by a Paris commercial court to re-instate a highly controversial Kurdish channel. Newroz TV was taken off air by Eutelsat on October 11th, and the satellite operator has been threatened with a fine of €10,000 a day if it doesn’t comply with the court order. However, the situation is extremely complicated. […]
A major 23-page report from equity analysts at investment bank Jefferies, and headlined: “Rehabilitation” examines the past year for European satellite operators (SES, Eutelsat and Inmarsat and Intelsat) with the bank saying that it was now firmly of the opinion that this past year’s difficult trading and revenue challenges were largely “misplaced” and that there […]
David Elstein, chairman of the Broadcasting Policy Group, is – not for the first time – highly critical of the way the UK’s public service TV obligations are being allowed to evaporate by regulator Ofcom. He says “the blind protectors of the BBC are hastening its demise”. His comments are contained in a chapter in […]
German commercial broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1’s decision to raise more than €500 million in fresh capital has not been well received by the market. The decision, combined with poor growth in advertising revenues, prompted equity analysts to question the rationale behind the decision. “We think there was more to this decision than meets the eye,” said a […]
London-based satellite operator Inmarsat has told investors that it might be forced to switch a launch contract from the Elon Musk-backed SpaceX possibly to a Russian-backed rocket. The problem is that SpaceX will have lost at least three months of launch activity since a September 1st explosion and fire on one of its rockets, and […]
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