Focus: Broadcasting

By Gerry Oberst Our previous article pointed to the opportunity costs that Russia was racking up by not adopting satellite regulatory decisions developed by the European Communications Committee (ECC) and its various administrative levels. Now the ECC has embarked on a review of those decisions to confirm which are really necessary for industry and which...

By Nick Mitsis Not too long ago, small satellites were serving a niche market, often dwarfed by the large global payloads. Today, customers are paying more attention to smaller satellites, many times making them their primary choice. But don’t rule out the large players quite yet. In fact, industry executives are forecasting that the next...

By Peter J. Brown There is much work to be done in the multimedia world, as the owners of new fixed, portable and mobile devices that dot the landscape in rapidly increasing numbers express their desire for more new content. This is no longer a matter of tracking trends in North America and Europe. That...

Zee Telefilms continues to see huge growth for its direct-to-home (DTH) platform, DishTV in India, and Chairman Subhash Chandra sees predictss another strong year in 2006. "In the last year alone, 12 new television channels have been launched," Chandra said. "There is segmentation, and television audiences are becoming particular about what they want to watch....

SIRI, XMSR With the Howard Stern sales blitz history and the companies reporting their 2005 performance, Wall Street is offering projections for the stock performance of Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio in 2006. The stock of both satellite radio companies has been rated "outperform" by Bear Stearns & Co. "Despite [fourth quarter 2005]...

The BBC filed news reports on the mudslide in the Philippines using Inmarsat’s Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN), the first news reports filed using the mobile satellite service, Stratos Global Corp. claimed. The mudslides hit Guinsaugon village in the Philippines’ southern Leyte Province Feb. 17 and a BBC journalist and cameraman began reporting from the...

Direct-to-home (DTH) operators must continue to look away from their satellite roots as they strive for business expansion and increased revenues. With new platforms such as Internet protocol (IP) TV and on-demand mobile content emerging, the platforms offer opportunities as well as threats to traditional satellite pay-TV operators. In Europe, BSkyB remains one of the...

Serbia Broadband (SBB), Serbia’s largest cable operator, is targeting 100,000 subscribers for its new direct-to-home (DTH) service within the next two years. SBB announced it was launching a DTH service at the end of January based on Eutelsat’s W2 satellite. TotalTV initially will offer 25 channels. "It is difficult to say but we hope in...

One of the biggest threats that satellite pay-TV operators face is the threat of piracy. People accessing content through an illegal smart card and not paying the operator for the service is a billion dollar industry, according to industry analysts. Smart card piracy is big business and conditional access (CA) vendors who provide security systems...

Sirius Reports Record Revenue, Subscriber Growth In 2005 Sirius Satellite Radio recorded revenue of $242.2 million in 2005, compared to revenue of $66.9 million in 2004, the company reported Feb. 17. The gains were driven by a net subscriber increase of 2.2 million during 2005, driven by the addition of Howard Stern to Sirius’ lineup....