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.
On December 7th a Russian Proton rocket suffered a serious malfunction and three satellites it was carrying tumbled into the Pacific Ocean after launch. The Glonass satellites would have served Russia’s GPS navigation. A formal Board of Inquiry has been set up to determine the cause of the failure. However, this will take some […]
Eutelsat, as expected, has ordered a replacement for the failed W3B satellite which failed to orbit on Oct 28. Thales Alenia will build W3D in near-record time, just 24 months, which is speedy for a 56-transponder craft. The order and rapid build commitment means the new satellite should be on station at 7 degrees […]
UK-based satellite services specialist Arqiva is going through some internal changes, with existing CEO Tom Bennie stepping down once a new CEO is found, and seeing Nick Thompson looking after its newly merged terrestrial broadcast, satellite & media division (and Steve Holebrook running mobile, government & enterprise). Thompson now says that with solid revenue numbers […]
Three weeks from now, just before the Christmas holiday, will see a Russian rocket launching Eutelsat’s Ka-Sat, a wonderful piece of satellite engineering complexity that will provide copious two-way broadband connectivity to Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. At 6.1 tonnes in weight it is one of the heaviest satellites ever launched and will […]
Eutelsat’s glittering Hot Bird prizes were awarded to a slew of channels in Venice, some well-established and some fairly new to the world of satellite transmission. Founded in 1998, this event was the 13th in the series “and is now a healthy teenager,” said Eutelsat chairman Giuliano Berretta. “We congratulate the men and women generating […]
Sales of flat-panel TVs at Japan’s electronics stores during the second week of November (8th-14th) increased by almost 600 per cent compared with the same period a year earlier, as consumers rushed to the stores to beat the cut-down of the government’s subsidy program for the purchase of eco-friendly home appliances. Data from market research […]
Hot on the heels of last month’s decisions to drop more than a dozen Arabic channels from Nilesat comes news that some 25 Iraqi channels are threatened with closure because they are unlicensed. BBC Monitoring is reporting that a senior Iraqi official in the Communications and Media Commission has threatened to shut down the channels. […]
Canada’s Telesat has confirmed it is looking at a possible IPO, as well as evaluating other potential options for the company. Indeed, either way, it looks like another handsome pay day is in the offing for CEO Dan Goldberg who has considerable experience of migrating satellite operators to a ‘next level’ owner. For example Goldberg […]
On Oct 29 Eutelsat declared its W3B satellite – launched a day earlier – as a “total loss”. The satellite operator was expected to deliberately de-orbit the satellite into the Pacific Ocean within hours. Now it has emerged that the satellite is to be maintained in orbit. The satellite is now expected to orbit for […]
Egypt is getting tough with some contentious channels and, meanwhile, there’s some highly vocal Arab criticism that ordering channels off Nilesat is directly linked to upcoming presidential elections in Egypt. ‘Not so’, implies Nilesat’s chief engineer Salah Hamza. “We have no formal regulator covering satellite transmission. There is no Ofcom, no FCC, no […]
Giordani named ProSiebenSat.1 Media CEO
Leadership shake-up at Mediapro
Channel 4’s Dispatches deploys AI presenter
Research: AI, curation, third-party data power new era in media buying
NBCUniversal invests in Run3TV
Samsung launches Perplexity AI-powered TV app
Forecast: 5G FWA to reach 150m subs by 2030
10,000th Starlink satellite launched 
Amagi appoints Mun as Sales Director for Korea
Why did The Bear not win an Emmy this year?