Advanced Television

DTH/Satellite

RRsat expands its back-up and disaster recovery services

RRsat Global Communications Network, a provider of comprehensive content management and global distribution services to the television and radio broadcasting industries, has announced that it signed an agreement with Spacecom, the operator of the AMOS satellite fleet, for monitoring, backup and disaster recovery services. As part of the agreement, RRsat will act as Spacecom’s remote […]

September 23, 2011

Arabsat and SES launch success

After a 48-hour delay caused by local technicians going on strike, the Arianespace mission to launch Arabsat 5C and SES-2 was successfully carried out late on the night of September 21/22. The flight was the 5th launch this year for the giant Ariane 5 rocket, and its two passengers were successfully placed into a geostationary […]

September 22, 2011By Chris Forrester

YahLive closing in on contracts

YahLive, the satellite broadcasting portion of Abu Dhabi-based YahSat that is managed by SES, is close to signing up its first all-HDTV capacity bookings. While commercial terms have not been revealed, it is understood that the first transponder rentals will go to channels from Abu Dhabi TV.   SES admits it is an ambitious “even […]

September 21, 2011

Al Jazeera boss quits

Wadah Khanfar, the highly regarded director general of Al Jazeera resigned unexpectedly on September 20th. He used ‘twitter’ to tell followers that his goal had been to establish the news channel as a global media leader and that his target had been met. Khanfar had been at the Doha-based channel for eight years. He will […]

September 21, 2011By Chris Forrester

40% of Cord Cutters would pay more for à la carte

Collectively, US pay-TV providers lost 400,000 subscribers in the second quarter – their single worst period in over three years, according to a new report from Strategy Analytics. Cable TV took the brunt of the hit, though Satellite operators were not left unscathed.  While much of the subscriber loss can be attributed to traditional economic […]

September 21, 2011

Freesat adds Massive R

Freesat has announced that it is adding Massive R to its range of existing music channels: NME TV, Bliss, Chart Show TV, Flava and the Vault. Massive R is the home of R&B and Hip Hop videos, interviews, countdowns and exclusives – and is available on Freesat Channel 518

September 21, 2011

SES-2 launch delayed

SES has confirmed that the launch of its new SES-2 satellite has been postponed as the result of industrial action at the Kourou space centre in French Guiana. The Trade Union of French Guiana Workers (UTG) initiated a strike within the Telespazio company making unavailable certain means of measurement in the Space Centre which are […]

September 20, 2011

Austria takes extra SES capacity

SES continues to find enthusiastic takers for its spare transponder capacity at 19.2 degrees East. SES says that Österreichischer Rundfunksender (ORS), which is the technical service provider for Austrian public broadcaster ORF and other channels, has contracted an additional transponder on SES’s prime orbital position 19.2 degrees East. The additional transponder is the fourth that […]

September 19, 2011By Chris Forrester

Madras DTH hit with 30% tax

DTH broadcasters beaming programming over the state of Tamul Nadu must pay a 30 per cent entertainment tax, local reports state. The idea is said to ensure continued support for State-backed Arasu Cable. The tax will directly hit Sun Direct, the local DTH player, with a 17 per cent market share. Other media-related taxes levied […]

September 16, 2011By Chris Forrester

EchoStar’s Dish goes ‘dark’

A satellite problem late on Tuesday night caused millions of viewers to lose their primetime HDTV signals from the Dish Network system at 129 degrees West. Dish asked viewers to reboot their set-top boxes in order to see programming restored. Outages were reported in Colorado, Texas, Ohio, Georgia, Indiana and elsewhere. Initially, viewers were told […]

September 15, 2011By Chris Forrester