Chris Forrester is one of the most experienced and highly regarded journalists in the field. His insight and analysis, particularly in the satellite and pay-TV arena, is highly prized. He has written for all the major business journals in the sector as well as several national newspapers.
Eutelsat has long struggled with the somewhat complicated names given to its fleet. From March 1 next year, it will adopt a new naming system whereby the satellite’s orbit location determines the name of the craft. Out will go the confusing Eurobird, Atlantic Bird, Sesat and W-series names. For example, its Atlantic Bird 2 satellite, […]
BBC Monitoring is reporting that China imposed restrictions on all of its provincial satellite TV channels about a month ago. “Authorities could now be gearing up to announce another measure aimed at tightening their grip on the mass media – a ban on all ads during TV dramas on all stations, including state-owned CCTV,” says […]
Korean electronics giant LG recently carried out a comparison test of its passive 3DTV technology with that of its 3D rivals’ ‘Active Shutter’ methods. LG used 4,000 ordinary Australian shoppers in a number of Westfield shopping malls to compare and contrast the technologies, and their ‘votes’ massively favoured LG’s Cinema 3DTV system over that of […]
Inmarsat had three catastrophic days last week if investor sentiment is any guide. Inmarsat, which supplies satellite-based services and communications mainly to the maritime and aircraft industries, was within the past year trading at a buoyant 724p per share. Last Monday (November 14) its price stood at 470p, already massively depressed. But from Wednesday to […]
The economic downturn has led an influential working group to advise Portugal’s government that the number of publicly financed TV and radio channels should be dramatically cut back. The suggestion is that RTP (Portugal’s public broadcaster) should transmit just one general interest channel and no longer carry advertising. Its “international” channel should be managed by […]
Loral Space & Communications says it may be buying back up to 800,000 of its own NASDAQ shares for cancellation. There’s no set timetable for the purchase, and the buy-back will depend on the market price and availability of stock. Loral has 21.2 million voting common shares outstanding and 9.5 million non-voting shares outstanding as […]
Jersey-based O3b is a would-be satellite operator looking to serve the ‘other 3 billion’, that is the millions who live either side of the Equator and are unserved by broadband availability. O3b’s largest investor is SES, but other investors include Google, Liberty Global, HSBC and others O3b has now raised another $137 million to pay […]
A dispute over satellite frequencies between Eutelsat and Arabsat over Iranian–claimed broadcasting rights has not been settled by the ITU, and is now to be presented to the global ITU conference of telecom authorities in January. The argument also concerns the wealthy Gulf state of Qatar. The argument concerns the so-called Zohreh-2 ‘satellite’ which never […]
Sony Corp is likely to lose a staggering $1 billion this year, which will maintain a terrible four-year record of losses under CEO Sir Howard Stringer. A Tokyo press conference outlined how the giant electronics-to-movies plans to trim some 125 billion Yen ($1.6bn) from annual costs over the next few years. This further bad news […]
On October 24, UK media regulator Ofcom cancelled the licences of three channels (Babeworld, House of Fun and The Other Side). These channels are perhaps not the most important UK broadcasters, but now Ofcom is looking at the licensing of channels that do have a somewhat higher profile. Ofcom’s concerns revolve around who actually controls […]
Survey: 45% say streaming experience is “overwhelming”
Data: Ad-supported subscriptions hit record high in UK
France: M6, TF1 partner with Amazon on targeted ads
Research: Familiar IP key to driving kids’ consumption on Netflix
MPs express concern over BBC editorial standards
Survey: Consumers increasingly engaging across cinema and digital
Data: Streaming subscriptions reach 91% of US internet homes
Samsung hit with $191m patent fine
Rouge named Eutelsat CFO
Telesat plans Q4 2026 for first Lightspeeds