Charlie Ergen’s EchoStar and Luxembourg-based SES are continuing their close working relationship with the addition of a new satellite at 105 degrees West. The new craft will have two names. EchoStar will call it EchoStar 105 while SES will dub the craft SES-11. Airbus will build the satellite and it will launch quite soon in […]
4k and UHD really are the talk of the town just now and are bound to dominate IBC. The September issue of Euromedia, released at the show, contains a comprehensive survey of industry views on the technical validity and real time line of this ‘next generation’ high def era. More than one observer warns it […]
On August 22nd two Galileo/GPS satellites were placed into a useless orbit. Now, an Israeli company is suggesting it can build a micro-satellite which would – in effect – rescue the two Galileo craft. Effective Space Solutions, based in Tel Aviv, says its DeOrbiter proposed rescue satellite could save not only these two Galileo satellites, […]
September 2nd sees the first of BSkyB’s financial roadshow presentations take place with the aim of raising the extra cash it needs to buy Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia. Financial reports suggest that BSkyB is looking to raise $2 billion. Last week BSkyB mandated three banks (Barclays, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley) to lead the […]
Pay-TV operator StarTimes Group is potentially in hot water in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), StarTimes is extremely active with subscription TV in Africa and is stuck in the middle of a political dispute between two senior politicians in the country. On the one hand there’s the head of the Congo’s Post & Telecoms […]
Eutelsat and Intelsat are being given permission by the USA State Department to carry Iranian satellite channels. The two satellite operators were previously barred from carrying the channels in 2012, and the Iranians quickly reorganised their broadcasting with Russian and Middle East broadcasters picking up the contracts. Now the State Department says Eutelsat and Intelsat […]
European space activity suffered another catastrophic failure on August 22nd when an Arianespace Soyuz rocket failed to correctly launch a pair of Galileo global positioning satellites. While not affecting the TV industry itself, the failure will place further delays on future launches with Soyuz rockets pending an official Board of Inquiry into the loss. The […]
Turkey is about to open its own high-performance satellite facility as well as setting up a sophisticated satellite test centre. The new factory has been built at the Akinci Air Force base, near Ankara, the nation’s capital city. New satellites, numbered Turksat 5A, 5B and 5C, will be built and assembled at the new plant. […]
Abu Dhabi already has tough rules on satellite dishes which state that a maximum of four may be mounted on the Emirate’s roofs. The capital city’s administration has now called on residents to remove satellite dishes that clutter up building roofs and apartment balconies. Abu Dhabi’s The Nation newspaper quotes Ahmed Al Mazroui, the director […]
Arguments over subscriber numbers and alleged under-reporting are not new, especially in India. But a recent high-profile argument between Hathway Cable and broadcasters Zee, Star and Turner, has raised the hackles at India’s TRAI regulator and its associated Telecom Disputes Settlement Appellate & Tribunal (TDSAT) which admits it is more than somewhat annoyed by having […]