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.
The fallout from the May 16th Proton rocket explosion and the total loss of a Mexican satellite continues to reverberate throughout the industry. SES on May 19th told a banker’s conference in New York that it was very much focusing on using rival launch specialists to Proton (and specifically mentioned Arianespace and SpaceX). SES told […]
Shooting starts this week on Sky Italia’s latest 3D production. Last year Sky Italia beamed its Vatican Museums in 3D to subscribers but also to 2000 cinema screens in 60 countries in 3D. This latest documentary is focussed on Florence and its stupendous Uffizi Gallery, where the crew will take a 6K look at the gallery’s […]
Back on March 1st, a SpaceX rocket launched two satellites into orbit. One was Eutelsat’s 115 West B (and ordered as a Sat-Mex satellite), and the other for ABS of Bermuda. Both were ‘all-electric’ satellites built by Boeing. It is now clear that both the satellites will arrive on to their targeted orbital positions a […]
Arianespace’s CEO Stephane Israel, in a briefing to the French National Assembly’s Economic Affairs Committee, has stressed that Arianespace can successfully compete with arch-rival Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket system. SpaceX has been winning a significant amount of business from Arianespace over the past few years, while Arianespace has also been challenged by lower-cost (although not […]
In January last year US-based Echostar bought the ailing Solaris Mobile S-band transmission system that is orbiting on a Eutelsat satellite. On May 15th Echostar CEO Michael Dugan told analysts that the new business, Echostar Mobile, would go ‘live’ over Europe in mid-2016. The system is waiting for the launch of a new satellite, Echostar-21. […]
Nobody would blame CBS and Viacom mogul Sumner Redstone for looking to retire. At 91 years-of-age anyone might expect him to step aside and leave the running of his global business to either of two extremely competent senior managers, or even his daughter Shari Redstone, to succeed him. One of the challenges is that CBS […]
On April 21st Sky revealed its quarterly numbers (group revenues up 5 per cent for the 9-months (at £8,453 million), and group EBITA up 20 per cent to £1,025 million). A fresh 21-page overview of Sky’s overall performance was issued May 6th by investment bank Jefferies, and saying that Sky’s growth drivers are in transition. […]
Al Jazeera America is facing a $15 million wrongful termination claim by a former employee, who alleges that executives at the broadcaster have exhibited an anti-American bias, and steadily brought in more Middle East staffers into the US operation. The writ specifically alleges that Osman Mahmud, senior VP of broadcast operations and technology, regularly used […]
A few months ago Charlie Ergen’s Dish Network were successful bidders in the Federal Communications Commission’s auction of AWS-3 wireless spectrum (which overall raised billions of dollars for the US Treasury). Ergen/Dish paid $13.3 billion out of the total $44.9 billion raised by the auction. However, Dish Network received a significant $3.3 billion in financial […]
We are in ‘results season’ as far as the world’s three largest satellite operators are concerned. As a consequence investment bank Jefferies’ has issued a major report on the state of the satellite industry. Intelsat is considered to be market leader, just ahead of SES with Eutelsat in third-largest position. The bank’s Giles Thorne says […]
Netflix acquires Affleck’s InterPositive
Movistar Plus adds mandatory ads when accessing TV channels 
SES adds new MEO capacity
UK Lords warn of AI impact on creative industries
Eutelsat completes refinancing plan
MVP launches MVPW; signs ESPN deal
Live streaming latency vs on-demand infrastructure reliability
Eurovision Sport provides live subtitling for Paralympic Winter Games
ESPN, Disney, Pixar, NHL team for Inside Out Classic alt-cast
£30m government funding for UK satellite comms