A major report from investment bankers Exane/BNP-Paribas states bluntly that Netflix is not just a major disrupter of all that is ‘normal’ in broadcasting, but its unique global approach to content and product, plus lower costs than its incumbents, means that Netflix is capable of “shifting the ground beneath [the traditional players’] feet”. The study […]
Aircraft ‘direct-to-seat’ entertainment and connectivity for passengers while travelling, currently represents a very modest 1 per cent of revenues for the major satellite players such as Eutelsat and SES. A major report from investment banker Exane/BNP-Paribas expects revenues from in-flight connectivity to grow to 15 per cent of group revenues at Eutelsat by 2025, and […]
Igor Komarov, who heads up the Russian Roscosmos space agency, stated June 3 that Russia intended to move more speedily to replacing its now troubled Proton launch rocket, reported news agency TASS. He said that recent failures, including a lost satellite launch in May, meant that rocket builder Krunichev would be switching to its newer […]
The CASBAA-sponsored Satellite Industry Forum heard some grave warnings that the local satellite operators face a “winter” of oversupply capacity. Speaker after speaker warned that there’s a high risk of over-supply even, while other speakers said they also wanted a slice of the action. Myanmar, for example, doesn’t have its own satellite, and U Thaung […]
John Malone controlled Liberty Global is in the news on a daily basis given Malone’s recent aspiration comments on telco giant Vodafone. Those comments have helped propel both Liberty and Vodafone’s share price to high levels (up 11 per cent this week). But will the deal happen, and if it does who will be ‘in […]
A long-forgotten pop group, The Turtles and their 1967 hit Happy Together, is the reason why US pay-radio operator could face Court-awarded penalties running into many millions of dollars. The band is still very much around and nowadays led by vocalists Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, and the pair started a Class Action against Sirius-XM […]
The past few years have seen four giant Proton rockets spectacularly fail and in the process destroying their precious – and expensive – satellite cargoes. The latest, that of Satmex-1, failed on May 16th. There is currently a Failure Review Board investigating the technical problems. But reports from Moscow suggest there may be deeper-rooted problems […]
The fallout from the May 16th Proton rocket explosion and the total loss of a Mexican satellite continues to reverberate throughout the industry. SES on May 19th told a banker’s conference in New York that it was very much focusing on using rival launch specialists to Proton (and specifically mentioned Arianespace and SpaceX). SES told […]
Shooting starts this week on Sky Italia’s latest 3D production. Last year Sky Italia beamed its Vatican Museums in 3D to subscribers but also to 2000 cinema screens in 60 countries in 3D. This latest documentary is focussed on Florence and its stupendous Uffizi Gallery, where the crew will take a 6K look at the gallery’s […]
Back on March 1st, a SpaceX rocket launched two satellites into orbit. One was Eutelsat’s 115 West B (and ordered as a Sat-Mex satellite), and the other for ABS of Bermuda. Both were ‘all-electric’ satellites built by Boeing. It is now clear that both the satellites will arrive on to their targeted orbital positions a […]