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.
Last week’s failure of a $275 million Russian rocket is severely impacting other satellites waiting for launch. London-based Inmarsat was the first satellite operator to admit that its upcoming pair of launches of its Global Xpress craft (Inmarsat-5 fleet) will be delayed. The first Inmarsat-5 satellite (“5-F1”) was successfully launched using Proton in December 2013 […]
Satellite operator SES saw its new president/CEO, Karim Michel Sabbagh make a keynote speech, one of his first opportunities to outline his vision for the company, and the broadcasting industry. Sabbagh was speaking at IDATE’s Digiworld event in Brussels on May 13th. Sabbagh explained that while satellite delivery of ‘one-to-many’ transmissions was a logical, and […]
BSkyB’s debt leverage is sufficiently low and it could triple its current debt levels and not jeopardise its investment grade status, say analysts at CreditSights Ltd. “BSkyB’s leverage at the moment is very low, it’s comfortably within their current ratings limits,” Mary Pollock, an analyst at CreditSights, said in an interview May 13th, and reported […]
Crispin Odey, who heads up Odey Asset Management, and who used to be married to Rupert Murdoch’s eldest daughter, is saying that the suggested purchase price made by Murdoch/21st Century Fox for Sky Deutschland’s assets is simply not enough. The current proposal, where BSkyB acquires Sky Deutschland (55 percent owned by Fox) using the VWAP […]
Satellite operator SES said that the upcoming launch of its giant Astra 2G satellite had slipped somewhat. It had been expected to launch in June. The eyes of the industry have been on the plan because the satellite had been rumoured to be the subject of USA sanctions against Russia following on from the Ukrainian […]
The market praised Sky Deutschland’s results (announced May 7th) which “confounded market worries” according to Berenberg Bank, and were “positive….[and].. confident” according to Morgan Stanley. There was praise for Sky Deutschland’s dramatically lowered churn, helped by the company’s two-year contracts now in place for many subscribers. However, Sarah Simon of Berenberg Bank said the quarterly […]
It seems the UK government wants Britain to have its own spaceport. The idea – had it emerged on April 1st – might have been worth a smile, but the concept of an Easterly-facing major launch facility in the overcrowded British Isles “that is also on the coast” might been seen as a foolish dream […]
Sky Deutschland last week carried a test transmission of a Bundesliga football match in Ultra-HD. The match, between Bayern Munich and Werder Bremen, was carried on an Astra satellite on April 26th, and carried at 50 fps and using the new High Efficiency Video Codec (HEVC) compression algorithm. Six 4K cameras were used and another […]
The market was impressed by BSkyB’s May Day Q3 results, and where the broadcaster managed to defy the pundits by reversing the generally negative sentiment ahead of the results into a very positive statement of the company’s health. Indeed, investment bank Morgan Stanley, in a “good news” report to clients on May 2nd, revised their […]
On April 28th we reported that certain commercial satellite launches were under threat of being cancelled because of the growing crisis with Russia in regard to the political situation in the Ukraine. In that story we specifically mentioned the upcoming launches of SES’s Astra 2G craft, plus a pair of satellites for London-based Inmarsat as […]
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