Safia Rana, commercial director at ViewSat. Photo: ViewSat

[Via Satellite 04-22-2016] Despite challenges with current economic conditions, Direct-to-Home (DTH) satellite service provider ViewSat is adding roughly half a dozen new channels a month from broadcasters in Africa. The company, based in the United Kingdom, is focused heavily on emerging markets and remains confident in their long term potential.

Safia Rana, commercial director at ViewSat, told Via Satellite that market conditions have been difficult for the past year, but that the company is very focused on diversifying its business within Africa, and sees large opportunity in the Middle East. She anticipates additional demand for satellite services from these regions.

“Market conditions have changed, but there is still going to be a need for satellite. We are bringing on board six or seven new channels a month within the Africa region, so there is no slowdown in uptake, that’s for sure,” Rana said.

ViewSat works actively with new startup channels, particularly in Africa. Rana said the company entered this niche market through deals with just one or two channels needing satellite capacity in Africa. This grew into a larger and larger business, notably for religious customers in Nigeria. She described this market as very different from that of established broadcasters such as those ViewSat supports in North America. As startup channels, she said they often lack specific departments for handling financial, legal or technical responsibilities.

“You are literally dealing with maybe one or two main people. Because it is a lot of religious channels that we deal with, more often than not you will have the head of a church, a bishop, or a pastor, and he will have someone that does all of his recording of material — maybe his preaching or sermons — and that technical person basically does all the recording for them. That person is tasked with finding a satellite for them to broadcast on. We are really talking to people that don’t typically have an understanding of how satellite works, how broadcast works, how to deliver content, transfer files, or put playlists together,” she said.

Though this requires more work on behalf of ViewSat, Rana said working with these channels provides lots of opportunity because they are very entrepreneurial. 

“We know what these startups require. We handhold, we train them on how to create playlists, transfer files, how to do live broadcasts. Equally there are more opportunities if you are a startup. Because they are not very well established, there is room for them to grow on multiple satellites,” she explained.

ViewSat leases capacity on two Intelsat satellites and two Eutelsat satellites. The company commits to 10 to 15 year capacity agreements, and subleases to customers, which typically go for shorter contracts. Because of market conditions, Rana said ViewSat customers are more frequently pursuing shorter duration contracts of closer to one-year as compared to the three-year contracts more common a few years ago. She mentioned specific influencing factors such as Nigeria’s foreign exchange crisis as part of the reason.

However other regions like East Africa are up and coming, she said. For example, Rana said ViewSat is conducting an increasing amount of business in Ethiopia and that the company intends to continue with its long-term decade-plus style capacity contracts from satellite operators.

“Every region is emerging at a different pace within Africa. The long-term leases with satellites will be there for the long-term I think,” she said.

In addition to linear satellite broadcasting, ViewSat is also developing a new streaming service. The company launched one before but Rana said that was motivated by a feeling that it was necessary to have such a service. The first iteration of the streaming service did not have much uptake. ViewSat is now revamping the service to launch again.

“Ultimately when we sat back, actually thought about it, and went through the commercial process, we thought: there is a value added service here. I think we can offer more than just streaming. Anyone can do just streaming, but ultimately it has to be a commercially viable proposition to your client, and because we work in completely different regions — where East Africa will be different than West Africa, which is different from the Middle East — we wanted to come to a solution almost by region where it is a tailored solution for customers,” she said.

ViewSat is now going through a product development stage to determine the needs of its largely religious customer base. Overall Rana said she does not expect Over-the-Top (OTT) and Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) to have a large impact on Africa because access to streaming is not widespread. Still, ViewSat wants to have a service that is available as an option to those who want it.

“We will probably be in a position to go to market within three to six months. Ultimately we felt we didn’t want to launch something just for the sake of it,” she added.

Regarding trends impacting the broadcast industry, Rana did point out a growing supply of surplus satellite capacity in the Middle East. She said that extra capacity has been around for the past seven to eight months and shows little signs of abating. Over Africa Rana said there has been surplus capacity for a long time, and she expects that will likely continue as more operators plan new satellites for the continent. Still, she said satellite has a key role to play in Africa’s broadcast sector.

“Satellite will always be the primary distribution,” she said. “Though you’ve got multi-screen viewing, you have streaming that’s up and coming, and multiple platforms, there is always going to be a need for satellite, especially in the regions we are operating in.”