It seems the UK government wants Britain to have its own spaceport. The idea – had it emerged on April 1st – might have been worth a smile, but the concept of an Easterly-facing major launch facility in the overcrowded British Isles “that is also on the coast” might been seen as a foolish dream […]

Sky Deutschland last week carried a test transmission of a Bundesliga football match in Ultra-HD. The match, between Bayern Munich and Werder Bremen, was carried on an Astra satellite on April 26th, and carried at 50 fps and using the new High Efficiency Video Codec (HEVC) compression algorithm. Six 4K cameras were used and another […]

The market was impressed by BSkyB’s May Day Q3 results, and where the broadcaster managed to defy the pundits by reversing the generally negative sentiment ahead of the results into a very positive statement of the company’s health. Indeed, investment bank Morgan Stanley, in a “good news” report to clients on May 2nd, revised their […]

On April 28th we reported that certain commercial satellite launches were under threat of being cancelled because of the growing crisis with Russia in regard to the political situation in the Ukraine. In that story we specifically mentioned the upcoming launches of SES’s Astra 2G craft, plus a pair of satellites for London-based Inmarsat as […]

May 1st sees BSkyB unveil its Q3 results (to March 31st). Investment banker Morgan Stanley, in a note to clients, says it is anticipating increased revenues (of about 3.5 per cent to £1.913 billion) for the quarter year, helped by 70,000 new broadband subscribers. However, this is well down on the 152,000 added during the […]

The ‘power supply anomalies’ suffered by Hispasat’s Amazonas 4A satellite looks likely to affect 50 per cent of the craft’s working capacity and result in an insurance claim for about half of the satellite’s value, according to informed sources. The problem has been identified as being a failed power subsystem related to the supply of […]

BSkyB’s Q3 results, due on May 2nd, are likely to disappoint the market, says a client note from Berenberg Bank. The current quarter-year is expected to be “slow” in terms of customer acquisitions, and this includes broadband net additions which could slump (y-o-y) by as much as 50 per cent, says the bank.  It also […]

Ironically, given that its purpose is to draw attention, targeted advertising is the dog that didn’t bark. For as long as most of us can remember it has been talked of the great untapped resource, just waiting to be unlocked by convergence; the ‘Mother Load’ that would justify much investment in technology and content. The […]

Seven citizen groups have submitted petitions to Japanese public broadcaster NHK demanding the resignation of the broadcaster’s president, Katsuto Momii as well as a couple of NHK directors. Almost 39,000 signatures were on the petitions, as well as a group from the influential Japan Congress of Journalists, are additionally threatening to withhold their annual licence […]

Amazonas 4A was launched on March 22nd (on an Ariane rocket with Astra 5B as its co-passenger). Unfortunately it soon emerged that the Hispasat-owned satellite was not working properly. Details are still sketchy but it seems the Orbital Sciences-built spacecraft had suffered a power subsystem malfunction which some sources suggest could be an undeployed solar […]