Charlie Ergen’s pay-TV operation Dish Network is offering the financial market $1 billion of fresh financing in the form of new Senior Notes. The net proceeds of the offering are intended to be used for general corporate purposes. The offering of this fresh debt goes only to qualified institutional investors. Pricing and precise terms have […]
Viewers in Ghana and Nigeria are growing increasingly fond of satellite DTH availability. A study from SES, part of their annual Satellite Monitor survey, reveals a steady increase in the penetration of satellite TV across Africa. The study on TV reception also shows an increase in SES reach from 33 million African households in 2018 […]
Eutelsat’s CEO Rodolphe Belmer, speaking at the Exane/BNPP-organised CEO Conference in Paris, painted a cautiously optimistic view for the medium-term outlook for the satellite operator. Belmer said he continues to expect its Video Broadcast division (62 per cent of group FY20e revenues) revenues to be broadly stable and to benefit from lower replacement capex. Once […]
Sky Deutschland has announced a major new content plan to that it says will “shakeup TV in Germany and take Sky into a new era”. Sky will deliver its plan through a combination of partnerships and development of its entertainment, movies and sports offering – and it starts with an extension of Sky’s deal with […]
Both Intelsat and FCC filed their C-band accelerated spectrum transition plans with the FCC on June 19th. The schemes outline how their clients will be moved in order to free up spectrum for the FCC’s 5G adoption. The plans show how some 3,500 cable head-ends and 13,500 Earth stations will have 60,000 blocking filters changed […]
The World Trade Organization (WTO) has ruled that the Government of Saudi Arabia has actively promoted and supported the beoutQ pirate operation since the beginning. The WTO’s final judgement – published on June 16th 2020 – declares Saudi Arabia has wholly breached, and is breaching, its obligations under international law to protect intellectual property rights. […]
The C-band replacement satellite orders for US coverage are being confirmed. Intelsat has ordered up at least six satellites. Four are to come from Maxar Technologies and will be built at Maxar’s Palo Alto plant (the former Space Systems/Loral facility). Two others will be supplied by Northrop Grumman. There will also be an additional seventh […]
M7 Group, the European Pay-TV provider, has concluded various satellite distribution agreements in recent weeks for its 1 degree West DTH platform. The newly signed-up channels are: JimJam Hungary and JimJam Romania: AMC Networks International – Central and Northern Europe owned channels focusing on children’s content with dedicated Hungarian and Romanian feeds; TV1000: a Viasat […]
Research from TDG, a division of Screen Engine/ASI, has found that nearly one-quarter of US virtual pay-TV households also subscribe to a traditional cable, satellite, or telco pay-TV service. Dual-service use peaked at 37 per cent of vMVPD subscribers in 2018, a time when Sling TV dominated the landscape, leaving many users without live programming […]
As well as approving a $1 billion ‘debtor in possession’ loan, Intelsat’s bankruptcy court had an extremely busy ‘omnibus’ day on June 9th dealing with dozens of applications and motions. The court approved the rate of interest that Intelsat must pay to the lenders Credit Suisse on the $1 billion loan. Intelsat has to pay […]