Focus: Broadcasting

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)/Radio-Canada has contracted Hunter Communications to provide satellite space segment services. Using its Ku-band beam that Hunter designed to service Canada and specifically its far north, Hunter will provide CBC/Radio-Canada with more transmission throughput and the ability to use smaller antennas that are easier to move to remote transmission sites. CBC/Radio-Canada broadcast...

Comcast has challenged 21st Century Fox’s bid to purchase Sky, announcing today its offer to purchase the British satellite broadcaster for $31 billion. Comcast intends to leverage Sky “as a platform for growth in Europe,” taking advantage of its strong presence in pay-TV markets in the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy. The deal offer is...

Commercializing 4K TV channels could be the key to survival for cable operators in the United States, according to 4KUniverse founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Matthew Mancinelli. In an interview with Via Satellite, Mancinelli suggested that the improved viewing experience could give cable TV operators the boost they need to fend off the growing...

OSN could launch an Ultra-HD offering by the end of the year, OSN CEO Martin Stewart told Via Satellite in an exclusive interview. OSN is one of the largest buyers of capacity in the Middle East. It has around 14 transponders at the moment, and Stewart believes that there is enough spare capacity if OSN...

Elettronica Industriale, a subsidiary of the Italian group Mediaset, has signed a multi-year capacity agreement with Eutelsat to accelerate its transition to High Definition (HD). Due to this contract, the three flagship channels of the Mediaset Group (Canale 5, Italia 1 and Rete 4) will be broadcast simultaneously in Standard Definition (SD) and HD on...

With cryptocurrency companies such as Qtum turning an eye toward satellite, experts are pondering what the impact blockchain technology will have in adjacent industries. There’s no doubt blockchain will disrupt many industries beyond Bitcoin mining — but will those ramifications be more negative or positive? Read more at Viaccess-Orca >>

NBC Olympics, a division of the NBC Sports Group, has selected SES to provide 4K High Dynamic Range (HDR) satellite distribution for its production of the 2018 Olympic Winter Games, which are currently taking place in PyeongChang, South Korea. SES is using its satellite platform to distribute the NBC Olympics HDR feed to their affiliates...

TDC Group and MTG announced that the MTG operations MTG Nordic Entertainment and MTG Studios (jointly MTG Nordics) will be combined with TDC Group to form a fully convergent media and communications provider with a potential reach of more than 10 million households in the Nordic region. The agreement will combine YouSee, Get, Viasat, TV3,...

Quantenna Communications and Canal+ have announced a partnership on Canal+’s two new platforms, the G9 and G9-mini, based on Quantenna’s QSR1000 and QSR2000 chipsets. The newly announced Canal+ satellite Set-Top Box (STB) G9 integrates Quantenna’s QSR1000-based 802.11ac 4×4 solution to redistribute HD video to its companion G9-mini wireless Over-The-Top (OTT) STB. The G9-mini integrates Quantenna’s...

During its recent financial results reporting, U.K. broadcaster and Internet Service Provider (ISP) Sky announced it will launch Sky over fiber in Italy and the company’s first all-IP service in Austria, “both without the need for a satellite dish,” according to Jeremy Darroch, group chief executive at Sky. The service will include all Sky channels...