Focus: Broadcasting

In a move designed to signal an aggressive, new strategy to generate more national ad sales and revenue, DirecTV announced Nov. 7 it is streamlining its advertising sales division by bringing the entire operation in-house. DirecTV will combine its existing advertising sales team with a group of account representatives from the satellite-TV service provider’s former...

XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. cuts its third quarter loss as revenues improved 57 percent, the company announced Nov. 6. XM lost $84 million in the 2006 third quarter, which closed Sept. 30, down from a loss of $132 million in the same period a year ago. Revenues jumped from $153 million in the 2005...

Soundexchange, the non-profit organization that collects and distributes royalties from digital music services on behalf of artists and record labels, is seeking higher fees from Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio, Soundexchange announced Oct. 30. "The essence of satellite radio is music," John Simson, executive director of Soundexchange, said in a statement. "We are...

Satellite operator Telesat Canada, a wholly owned subsidiary of BCE Inc., garnered revenues of 113.5 million Canadian dollars in the 2006 third quarter, up slightly from revenues of 112.2 million Canadian dollars in the 2005 third quarter, the company announced Nov. 1. Telesat posted earnings of 19.8 million Canadian dollars, down 22 percent from earnings...

In one of the most significant announcements of the year in the European satellite industry, traditional rivals SES Global and Eutelsat will team up to launch a satellite-based mobile broadcasting system. The two companies will share the costs, about 130 million euros ($165.9 million), in the development of the S-band payload that will be placed...

GSAT Globalstar Inc. priced its initial public offering at $17 per share, the company announced Nov. 2. The company has also added 1 million shares to the offering, bringing the total to 7.5 million shares. The stock has begun trading on the Nasdaq under the symbol GSA and closed at $17.52 on its first day...

Qinetiq announced Nov. 1 it is launching a European satellite interference geolocation service intended to deter malicious or accidental disruption of satellite communications services while allowing customers to identify and locate the source of the interference. The service, based on Qinetiq’s SatID system, uses patented techniques to deliver the service. No equipment is required at...

The demand for commercial C- and Ku-band capacity will grow globally at an average annual rate of 3.2 percent, Northern Sky Research (NSR) announced Oct. 31. Between 2005 and 2011, capacity equal to nearly 900 additional transponders will be leased from a large variety of satellite services, pushing annual revenues for leased capacity from $6.7...

The commercial geostationary satellite transponder market produced total revenues of $708.5 billion in Latin America in 2005, and that figure will reach more than $1 trillion by 2012, Frost & Sullivan announced Oct. 31. Though the expansion of terrestrial networks such as fiber, wireless and mobile pose a challenge for the satellite market, the demand...

The World Teleport Association (WTA) announced Nov. 1 its rankings of the Top Teleport Operators of 2006 in three categories. The Global Top 20 includes satellite and fiber carriers operating teleports, led by Intelsat, SES Global and Eutelsat; the Independent Top 20 includes ground segment operators only and is topped by Globecast, Stratos Global and...