Advanced Television

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.

Liberty Media facing further Class Actions

Two major Class Actions are naming Liberty Media and CEO Greg Maffei in their allegations. One Class Action by shareholders in TripAdvisor, itself with a major shareholder in the shape of Liberty Media, can proceed with their lawsuit. The claim centres on a move by TripAdvisor from its existing Delaware domicile to Nevada and alleged […]

May 16, 2023

Telesat: Zero news on Lightspeed

Canada-based satellite operator Telesat, which operates the Anik, Nimiq and Telstar satellites, failed to give investors or analysts any good news on its proposed $5 billion Lightspeed low Earth orbiting broadband fleet. In fact, the news was depressing given the frequent past promises and assurances that all was well with the project. Telesat President/CEO Dan […]

May 15, 2023

Eutelsat/OneWeb: “Synergies of more than €1.5bn”

Eutelsat says that its upcoming merger with Low-Earth orbiting constellation OneWeb will achieve estimated savings for between €1.5 billion-€1.8 billion in the two businesses’ operational costs, measured against an overall cost to Eutelsat of an estimated €4 billion in terms of acquisition and investment. The Eutelsat and OneWeb merger is on track to close during […]

May 12, 2023

Satellite electrical propulsion to grow

It isn’t so very long ago that electrical propulsion for satellites was a very new kid on the block. Boeing’s Xenon-Ion Propulsion System (XIPS) was introduced on the (then) Hughes 702 versions its high-power versions of its popular HS-702 craft and used for final orbital insertion. December 1999 saw the launch of an HS-702 with […]

May 10, 2023

EchoStar wants hundreds of new satellites

EchoStar is sitting on a war chest of $1.7 billion in cash, and wants to invest in an expanded fleet of wide-band satellites to augment its existing 28-craft fleet of Lyra narrowband satellites. The news emerged in EchoStar’s post-result analyst call when CEO Hamid Akhavan said: “We are in the design and engineering phase of […]

May 10, 2023

WBD’s Zaslav: “This is a new CNN”

Back at the true beginning of the multichannel era there was MTV, and then there was CNN. CNN’s founder Ted Turner, on the news network’s first day of transmissions in 1980, said that barring satellite problems “we won’t be signing off until the world ends”. He added that the channel would then play the old […]

May 8, 2023

SES: IRIS² “still many unknowns”

SES CEO Steve Collar, speaking to analysts following on from the satellite operator’s Q1 results on May 4th, said the European Union’s third global satellite constellation, IRIS², was a “strategic project” for SES. Nevertheless, he admitted that while enthusiastic there were still many known unknowns and it was too early to be more specific. “We’re […]

May 5, 2023

Analyst: OneWeb modifies size of orbital fleet

Analysts at Quilty Space report that OneWeb’s Gen-1 network will be slightly smaller than originally anticipated. A tweet from OneWeb’s CTO confirmed that the company’s last launch, a May/June Falcon 9 mission, will carry only 16 OneWeb satellites. That means the final Gen-1 satellite count will be 634, or 14 less than the original plan […]

May 4, 2023

What IRIS² means for EU’s space industry

The fact that the IRIS² satellite consortium includes just about every major name in the European space business provides a strong clue as to the project’s overall importance. IRIS², with a nod to the Greek goddess of mythology and messenger of the gods and also in its own EU-speak, Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security […]

May 3, 2023

Triple success for SpaceX; Ariane loses contract

Elon Musk’s SpaceX scored three perfect launches over the past few days. However, it has emerged that Arianespace has lost an important contract to launch a satellite for Viasat. It has also emerged that Musk is budgeting to spend $2 billion on his Starship development programme. SpaceX’s three recent launches (46 Starlinks on April 27th, […]

May 2, 2023