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.
Investment bank Jefferies has updated its forecasts for streaming service Viaplay, and they do not make the best of reading. The bank has now stripped out those international markets no longer part of Viaplay’s strategy. The bank’s numbers also reflect current guidance from Viaplay. “Our FY23-25E revenue forecasts decrease by -c.8.5% on average,” says Jefferies. […]
Terran Orbital is building an initial 300 satellite (288 craft plus 12 spares) mega-constellation for Rivada Space. However, Rivada is on an extremely tight launch schedule in order to comply with International Telecommunications Union (ITU) obligations. Terran has outlined its delivery plans for the next few years as far as the first batch of satellites […]
SpaceX wants to start supplying connectivity for a ‘direct-to-handset’ cellular service. The trouble is that Globalstar is already licensed by the FCC for its iPhone service for Apple and its permission is near-exclusive. The SpaceX applications to the FCC started back in September last year and asked for a modification to its existing operating licence […]
The doubters who had grave concerns that the long-awaited merger in India of Zee and Sony/Culver Max would ever happen are beginning to change their doubts to support. The combined pair certainly have some considerable muscle. For example, they will offer 75 video channels, two OTT platforms and an impressive studio output. However, Disney’s Star […]
Ottawa-based Telesat’s recent announcement that it had awarded a 198-craft order with fellow Canadian satellite builder MDA caused considerable surprise with the former Prime Contractor and favoured supplier Thales Alenia Space. By any measure, Telesat’s challenges with the Lightspeed constellation over the past few years has been to overcome some major bumps in the road, […]
Jeff Bezos-backed rocket company, Blue Origin, now employs almost 11,000 staff according to The Wall Street Journal. The business has multiple missions. There’s a space tourism portion, but the larger effort is looking at launching Amazon’s Project Kuiper broadband satellites into orbit. A Blue Origin ‘New Shepard’ passenger carrying rocket launched Star Trek actor William […]
Europe’s giant Ariane 6, already much delayed, is to be further postponed into 2024 says the European Space Agency (ESA). The delay, perhaps as long as six more months, comes amid considerable criticism of ESA, and the rocket’s other build and launch contractors. One recent comment described the ESA and its partners in the project […]
SES told analysts that while it was looking forward to banking some $3 billion in cash from the FCC’s C-band compensation scheme (and likely to be banked early to mid-Q4/2023) there was more cash likely to be forthcoming. CFO Sandeep Jalan’s advice was to “stay tuned”. Acting CEO Ruy Pinto and Jalan were briefing analysts […]
Analyst Tim Farrar of TMF Associates says that Elon Musk’s Starlink system will dominate satellite broadband “for at least the next five years”. Farrar adds that Musk is also dominating the launch business with his Falcon 9 rockets. His comments follow on from SpaceX’s comments to investors that it expects its overall (rocket launches plus […]
Investment bank Exane/BNPP, in a note to clients, expects satellite operator SES to report a 3 per cent fall in revenues for its Q2 trading period. SES will unveil it numbers on August 3rd. Sami Kassab, an equity analyst at the bank, suggests that SES will report overall revenues of €487 million. The operator’s important […]
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