[Satellite TODAY 05-02-13] Viasat Broadcasting has appointed Aleks Habdank as chief operating officer of its Pay-TV Emerging Markets operations, effective May 7, 2013. Habdank will be based in London and manage Viasat Broadcasting’s pay-TV channel operations in Central and Eastern Europe, and develop its pay-TV business in the Emerging Markets. He will report to Irina Gofman, CEO of Modern Times Group’s (MTG) Russian, CIS and Emerging Market pay-TV operations and support her on the operations within her business area. Viasat Broadcasting includes MTG’s television broadcasting operations.

 

    Viasat’s Emerging Market pay-TV operations market and sell pay-TV packages on the Viasat satellite platforms in the Baltics and Ukraine, and on the joint venture Raduga TV satellite platform in Russia. Viasat also distributes 35 channels via third party pay-TV networks to subscribers in 31 countries across Central and Eastern Europe, Africa and the United States. The wholesale channel business has over 85 million mini-pay TV subscriptions across these territories. The Viaplay online pay-TV service was launched in Russia in March 2012, and has also recently been made available to Viasat’s Ukrainian satellite customers.