SES said 16 different satellites were used for an approximate number of 1,800 bookings to cover the US elections and dispatch reports globally for customers including EBU for Eurovision, Telenor, Arqiva, Telemundo, Media Broadcast, NBC, CBS, CNN, PBS, Fox News, Encompass Digital Media, CNBC and MSNBC.

Prime SES carriers of election coverage in the Americas were the AMC-9, SES-1, AMC-1, and SES-2 satellites, while ASTRA 3B, NSS-7, SES-4 and NSS-806 were used internationally. All U.S. available occasional use Ku-band capacity was fully booked, leading SES to bring in the inclined orbit satellite AMC-5 to help broadcasters find last minute capacity.

“The demand for SES occasional use satellite capacity to cover the final showdown between President Barak Obama and his challenger Mitt Romney was phenomenal – and truly global! SES satellites carried live election coverage across the world as we registered over 1,500 individual accesses from TV stations,” SES Vice President of Global Occasional Use Samantha McCloskey said in a statement. “I would like to thank our customers for entrusting SES with their live coverage, as well as all SES staff who ensured flawless, high-quality transmissions to every corner of the earth with more than 1,200 MHz of satellite capacity simultaneously in use for election coverage at one point.”