Thailand’s Food & Drug Administration has sent warning letters to 33 satellite channels saying they must stop airing “exaggerated” advertisements.  The channels must immediately stop airing the commercials, or else face fines and potentially imprisonment. 301 channels were officially licensed (mostly with straightforward renewals) only last week by Thailand’s National Broadcasting & Telecommunications Commission, although […]

John Malone’s Liberty Global is making a bid for Virgin Media and the press somehow manages to work it up as a Malone versus Murdoch showdown. The notion of two aged Titans facing off in one of the world’s most developed media markets is tantalising, but is far from the reality. The world’s most experienced […]

This coming Thursday (February 7th) will see Eutelsat reveal its half-year numbers, and the consensus from the market is that a series of records will emerge for the satellite operator. Top line video revenues are expected to grow by 8.6 per cent to €438 million and helping drive overall revenues to €633 million. The situation […]

The Italian commercial TV market remains in a depressed state, and the upcoming General Election is not helping the advertising market, says a report from Morgan Stanley. “Last year [we] anticipated TV ad-spend to be down -3 per cent. It closed 2012 down -13 per cent.”  The report says that La7 saw Net ad-revenues tumble […]

The USA’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is backing a competition which could lead to a satellite servicing and rescue project called Phoenix. The plan for the Phoenix satellite calls for a space vehicle fitted with a manoeuvrable arm to salvage satellites and components from retired or damaged satellites.  The scheme calls for the […]

BSkyB will unveil its end-December core numbers this coming Thursday (January 31st) and the consensus is that the pre-Christmas quarter year’s trading will show record numbers. For example, investment banker Morgan Stanley forecasts that revenues will have grown 4.2 per cent to £1.779 billion helped by the September price rise. Over the course of the […]

One year ago in Euromedia, we reported on the immediate aftermath of the Arab Spring, its affect on broadcasters in the region and the part they had played in what seemed, at the time, the largely positive overthrow of dictators. Even then, the risk of the joy of demonstrators in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and beyond […]

Arabsat has contracted with an Astrium/Thales Alenia consortium to build its latest satellite, the first of its ‘6th Generation’ series. BADR-7 is being built jointly by Astrium, which will supply its Eurostar E3000 platform for the project, and Thales Alenia which will design and build the communications payload.  Arianespace will launch the craft. The contract […]

An overly generous Santa Claus left a very nice gift for me under the tree this year, a shiny new Apple iPad Mini with both WiFi and 4G access. Considering I already own a first generation full size iPad, an iTouch, two Apple iPhone 4s, the latest Apple MacBookPro, a MacMini, a MacPro tower and […]

Last week one firm of investment bankers advised clients to “Sell” their Eutelsat stock. This week a different set of advice comes from Morgan Stanley which highlights Eutelsat as one of its Top 5 media stock picks of the year, despite being a poor overall performer during 2012, and at one stage last year revising […]