Malaysia’s Astro DTH service, Kristal Astro, is to end its Brunei transmissions on March 31st. The company blames the growing digital-based services in what is a modest population of fewer than 500,000. Kristal Astro stated: “Considering the fast changing technology trends causing huge shifts in consumer preferences towards digital media consumption, we have come to […]
Grupo Televisa and Univision Holdings II, Inc. (together with its wholly-owned subsidiary, Univision Communications, have confirmed the completion of the $4.8 billion (€4.3bn) transaction between Televisa’s media content and production assets and Univision. The new company, TelevisaUnivision, creates the world’s leading Spanish-language media and content company. TelevisaUnivision will produce and deliver premium content for its […]
MultiChoice’s satellite service is facing new competition in Zimbabwe. Azam TV has launched some 100 DTH channels to Zimbabweans for the equivalent of $5 a month. The fee for 130 channels, which includes many premium channels, rises to $15 a month. Azam TV is backed by Bakhresa Resa Group which is owned by a Tanzanian […]
Israel’s communications ministry is delaying – and may ban – the sale of Israel’s Spacecom satellite business. Spacecom operates the AMOS fleet of satellites and was in the process of being sold to a Hungarian company 4iG. Local reports in Israel say the communications ministry have declined to sign off the deal due to concerns […]
Intelsat is in the process of exiting its Chapter 11 bankruptcy reconstruction. It has organised its post-bankruptcy financing and German financial services giant Allianz will be very much in control of Intelsat. The European Commission approved on January 24th the control of Intelsat Holdings SA by Allianz SE and has given the green light to […]
Montenegro’s media regulator has announced a public tender to grant the rights to access the capacity on the country’s first national DVB-T2 multiplex (MUX 1). The Council of the Agency for Electronic Media (SAEM) will award a licence to one free-to-air broadcaster, whether commercial or non-profit. Interested parties can submit their applications by February 24th. […]
At the moment, any merger plan between Dish Network and AT&T’s DirecTV is just behind the scenes talk. But it could happen, and if so, how would the pair start saving cash? The usual synergy promises will trim head-count and the marketing and advertising budgets would be trimmed. But what about those orbital assets? The […]
Azercosmos is to use its powerful C-band beams that cover most of Africa to provide satellite services. The company is working with Malaysia’s Measat to use the Azerspace-1 craft which operates from 46 degrees East for the service. The pair say that under the agreement with Measat, Azercosmos will provide the continued seamless distribution of […]
Hispasat, the Spanish satellite operator, has acquired 19.04 per cent of the shareholding of its Brazilian subsidiary Hispamar Satélites from Telemar, after obtaining the necessary permits and authorisations from the Brazilian government. Consequently, Hispasat will hold 100 per cent of its subsidiary’s share capital. At present the Hispamar fleet is made up of the Amazonas […]
Comms technology specialist CommScope and media & entertainment group ViacomCBS have confirmed that ViacomCBS launched FAVE and migrated its DABL and select SHOWTIME linear channels from satellite to Content Delivery Network (CDN) IP distribution using the CommScope DigiCipher Streaming system. The migration represents the first ViacomCBS services to be fully transitioned from satellite to CDN […]