Arqiva Crawley Court satellite teleport.
Photo: Arqiva

[Via Satellite 09-20-13] Arqiva has signed a multi-transponder deal with SES, which enables the company to continue to serve radio and television customers in the United Kingdom and Ireland. As Arqiva plans to expand its international presence, this could fuel the satellite capacity needs for this key SES customer.

Barrie Woolston, commercial director, satellite and media, Arqiva, talked to Via Satellite, about the company’s plans going forward. “We have a strong satellite business and our plans include international growth outside Europe and North America,” he said. “We now have a presence in Asia and are about to open our first office in Singapore, for example. We also have plans for fiber rollout across locations in Asia and the Middle East.”

Arqiva is a communications infrastructure and media services company, operating at the heart of the broadcast, satellite and mobile communications markets. Satellite remains fundamental to Arqiva’s plans. “We purchase satellite supply around the world to support our customers to deliver high quality TV, radio and data services in the United Kingdom and globally.” Woolston added. “Our satellite demand continues to grow in our established markets and new geographic markets we plan to enter. Our demand profiling for the future includes collaborating closely with our customers, satellite operators, TV platform operators and market analysts.”

The company is a long-standing customer of SES and plays a key role in supporting broadcasting clients around the world. “Our interests in the broadcast sector span terrestrial and satellite services, where we support over 500 channels globally,” said Woolston. “We are also looking to the future with the launch of new services such as Connect TV, which provides broadcasters and content owners with smart, simple access to the U.K.’s FTA terrestrial and satellite connected TV audience.”

The company, which has a strong presence in the United Kingdom, is confident despite the proliferation of new online TV offers, that its traditional broadcast business will remain strong. This is the view of Jamie Friend, head of strategy, digital platforms, Arqiva. “In the United Kingdom at least, people have never watched so much broadcast TV.  Recent Ofcom figures show that the average person watches over 4 hours of television per day – more than ever before. Secondly, 90 percent of viewing is ‘live’ or linear. Finally, 98 percent of viewing is driven by the linear TV schedule (i.e. including PVR and 7-day catch-up). These figures demonstrate that the new – and increasingly prevalent – ways to watch TV on multiple screens, anywhere, anytime have proved incremental – and not substitutional – to traditional TV viewing,” he said.

Woolston believes overall Arqiva’s business is in strong shape. In terms of what the company needs to grow its business over the next 12 months, he says, “The challenges are the usual ones: we are always looking out for good people to join us as we work on the future of TV and expand into international markets. We have won a number of bids recently and so we are gearing up for growth over the next year. We are continually seeking to be more customer-centric in our business and put the customer at the heart of what we do; our activity here is based on research we have undertaken across our customer base.”