ESOA (the European Satellite Operator's Association) has elected Romain Bausch, CEO of SES as Chairman of the Board. Bausch, a satellite industry veteran, joined SES in 1995 as CEO and has been President and CEO since 2001. He also serves as Chairman of the SES Executive Committee, Chairman of the Board of Directors of SES […]

Bahrain-based Orbit and Dubai's Showtime Arabia are merging between the two rival pay-TV businesses. The new company is an "equal partnership" between Orbit, up until now a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Saudi Arabia-based Mawarid Group, and Showtime Arabia/Gulf-DTH which was owned by Kuwait's KIPCO and Viacom. The new business will offer new packages to viewers […]

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has said the DTH subscriber base has swelled to more than 13 million in the country, indicating an increased penetration of the service. TRAI said “total number of reported registered Direct to Home (DTH) subscribers served by five private DTH operators, offering paid service, had gone up to […]

Sky Deutscheland has terminated its distribution contact with Deutsche Telekom for the its IPTV platform. The 'T-Entertainment' branded service will is no loner available through Sky, though both companies have acknowledged that the possibility of further talks remains. Premiere announced plans to rebrand as Sky Deutschland in April, which has since seen the two pay-TV […]

The director general of RTE has now publicly admitted that launching Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) in September is no longer a “reasonable” prospect. When the consortium originally charged with rolling out the commercial arm of DTT walked away from the project in April, it was said there would be no effect on RTE’s plans to […]

Preliminary results from IMS Research's forthcoming 2009 study on the World Market for Set-top Boxes and iDTVs has revealed that during 2008 the mantle of being the leading digital pay-TV platform was taken from DTH satellite by digital cable. According to Stephen Froehlich, a senior analyst in IMS Research's consumer electronics research group, "Digital cable […]

The DTH market in India has emerged as one of the most lucrative markets which have successfully resisted the impacts of the current economic slowdown. The slowdown has certainly proved a boon for the Indian DTH industry as people have now started to cut on their entertainment expenditure and instead of viewing movies at theatres, […]

Viasat Broadcasting has signed an agreement with Swedish commercial broadcaster the TV4 Group to add TV4 Play to Viasat OnDemand, as a catch-up service for Viasat’s satellite TV subscribers through the recordable digital box. The public broadcaster’s service SVT Play joins the already present play channels TV3 Play, TV6 Play, TV8 Play, ZTV Play, TV1000 […]

Eutelsat has confirmed the full commercial launch of Fransat, the new service giving satellite access in metropolitan France to all French free DTT channels. To receive Fransat, households can buy a labelled Pack comprising a decoder and a Fransat conditional-access smartcard. Packs are already available at typical points of sale for satellite TV (individual suppliers […]

From Branislav Pekic in Rome Italian public broadcaster RAI will launch a new free-to-air satellite TV channel for international audiences on June 28th. Yes Italia will promote Italy's cultural and historical heritage, with four-hour blocks of programmes dedicated to cuisine, travel, Italian design and cultural events. It will target both international viewers and foreign tourists […]