Telenor’s Thor II has been retired and placed in a graveyard orbit about 350 kms higher than the normal geostationary operational height in a six-day operation which wrapped on January 10th. Thor II was launched on a Delta 11 rocket from Cape Canaveral in May 1997. It was the first satellite actually procured by Telenor […]

On January 8th, Eutelsat launched a demo Ultra-HDTV channel – the first full-time such channel anywhere on the planet. This step is but the first in what Berenberg Bank says represents a growing momentum building in Ultra-HDTV. “2012 was the year when we first heard noise about Super Hi-Vision or Ultra HDTV (UHDTV), the new […]

In a sign that pay-radio is now considered mainstream entertainment as far as North American vehicles are concerned, Toyota has mandated that Sirius-equipped units are now fitted to their entire 2013 range of cars, from ‘basic’ models to up-market models.   SiriusXM will also be standard on all vehicles equipped with Toyota’s popular Entune in-car […]

The STB business of Motorola has gone to Arris as they beat out Pace and others with a winning $2.35 billion bid. Arris is one of those billion dollar (in fact currently about $1.75 billion market cap) that no one not in its sector has ever heard of. They are so low profile the deal […]

It has been a weekend of frenzied activity as Discovery Communications mopped up the SBS broadcasting segment of ProSiebenSat.1 and took a useful slice out of TF1, and meanwhile Liberty Global pitched its offer for Benelux cable MSO Telenet. Full marks to Discovery for further extending its interests outside its pure ‘factual’ entertainment reputation. Indeed, […]

There have been three failures in the past 16 months of the Proton rocket when fitted with the Briz-M upper stage booster, needed to loft satellites into geostationary orbit. A review board is currently engaged into funding out what went wrong with a December 9th failure which did not correctly orbit its hugely valuable cargo. […]

Being a shareholder in Pace has sometimes been profitable – but mostly not – and it has rarely been dull. Now the Yorkshire-based STB maker is bidding for the Motorola STB business that Google would like to offload following its buy of the mobile business. For a company that was earlier this year on its […]

This past weekend’s ILS/Proton rocket launch problems have placed Satmex, the next planned launch client, into an extremely dangerous position.  Russia’s Proton Briz-M upper stage failed to reach its intended orbit, and placed its satellite into a lower orbit than intended.  All planned further launches will now be subject to further delays. This will severely […]

Eutelsat’s massive 70B craft was successfully orbited from the floating Sea Launch platform overnight on December 3-4. The launch took place at 20.44 GMT on the 3rd. The huge 5.2 tonne satellite is to be placed at 70.5 degrees East. Eutelsat, in a statement, said the craft’s solar panels had been partly deployed some two […]

So, an academic study has suggested that the closure of Megaupload may have harmed legitimate box office takings for some movies. To some this kind of declaration is the media equivalent of being a climate change ‘denier’. I have said here before that the phalanx of content rights representation bodies – there are many of […]