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Inside Satellite

Chris Forrester

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.

Pro7/Sat1: “Many attractions”

Investment banker Morgan Stanley, in a note to clients, suggests that despite recent share price growth for German commercial broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1, the network still has plenty of upside momentum. This positive outlook is helped by Pro7/Sat1 increasingly robust view that German advertising is recovering for 2012. Forward TV ad-sales booking commitments are up 2 per […]

March 5, 2012

Is James Murdoch a ‘dead man walking’?

Whatever criticism might have been targeted against Rupert or James Murdoch over the whole News International/News of the World phone hacking scandal, nobody could suggest that BSkyB hasn’t played a wholly balanced and fair game as far as its major 39 per cent shareholder is concerned. Indeed, Sky News has been thorough and entirely open […]

March 4, 2012

DStv is seeing off TopTV

South Africa’s TopTV has had a tough couple of weeks, having lost its CEO and with news emerging that barely half of its issued 360,000 set-top boxes remain active. Indeed, a report from investment bankers Morgan Stanley on Naspers (which is a major investor in Multichoice/DStv) suggests that TopTV “is unlikely to make major inroads” […]

March 2, 2012

Colors loses brightness to Zee TV

There has been something of a ‘battle royal’ in India as the nation’s broadcasting giants slug it out for viewer loyalty. The latest numbers show that Zee TV is back in ascendancy. Its performance isn’t quite good enough to place it at the top of the ratings (a position still held by Star Plus), nor […]

March 1, 2012

Iran sat-dish ban, and Boston

It is a tale of two cities, where one is an evil regime that won’t allow people to watch satellite TV, and then there’s Iran! Iran doesn’t like satellite TV, or perhaps more accurately it doesn’t like TV that comes into its country from outside its borders. The United Nations, via the International Telecommunications Union, […]

February 28, 2012

Is China about to back foreign satellite TV?

China’s Prime Minister Wen Jiabao’s son, Wen Yunsong, has taken the helm at APY Satellite Holdings, the Hong Kong-based satellite operator. As a result the company’s stock price has rocketed by almost 50 per cent this past week. Investors – and China-watchers generally – are betting on the move representing a change of heart by […]

February 24, 2012

GE Satcom becomes Signalhorn

GE Satcom, an old-established satellite services provider, and owner of the Satlynx two-way broadband services, has changed its name to Signalhorn.  Satlynx/Signalhorn has a wide portfolio of satellite-based services in the Government, Defence, Enterprise, Maritime, and Oil & Gas customers totalling more than 300 clients and over 10,000 remote sites. The change of ownership took […]

February 23, 2012

Eutelsat and SES: Caution is the verdict

Last Friday, both SES and Eutelsat delivered major sets of financial numbers. SES and Eutelsat issued cautious statements, and were marked down by the market. Investment bank Morgan Stanley has put out reports on both satellite operators. The bank said that Eutelsat’s ‘prudent’ statement “put a damper on its stock price” as CEO Michel de […]

February 21, 2012

SES predicts a Battle Royale for Indian subs

Deepak Mathur, SES’s SVP/Commercial for Asia-Pac and the Middle East, says that India’s seven competing DTH broadcasters are likely to add more than 25 million new subscribers between now and 2016. Today’s DTH numbers total more than 44.4 million (as at November 30 2011). Mathur says that India is now the largest DTH “bastion” in […]

February 20, 2012

Israel’s Amos 5 “ready to work”

Spacecom’s Amos 5, launched on December 11th 2011 by ILS from Baikonur, was commercialised on January 25th.  Some C-band clients have recently been relocating from Spacecom’s temporary leased capacity (the former AsiaSat-2) to the new satellite at 17 deg East. However, there are also further considerable expansion plans afoot with rumours that a new satellite […]

February 15, 2012