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Interactive television will generate revenues of $20 billion by 2004, according to Forrester Research. Forrester estimates that interactive applications will generate $11 billion in advertising, $7 billion in commerce and $2 billion in subscription revenues by that date, with electronic programme guides reaching 55 million homes.
Distribution equipment manufacturer Avitel is to provide video and audio distribution equipment for use in satellite headend monitoring equipment for the Egyptian state broadcaster, the Egyptian Radio and Television Union.
OpenTV has confirmed that Sony has licensed OpenTV operating system software under a non-exclusive worldwide agreement. Sony will incorporate the OpenTV software into the digital satellite receivers it is building for Sky Digital in the UK.
The delayed Ariane Flight 118 from Kourou has now been scheduled for August 12. The original launch, carrying the Indonesian PTT’s Telkom 1 satellite into orbit, was delayed after components were discovered to be faulty. Arianespace decided to replace four identical electro-valve interface units located on the rocket’s third stage cryogenic engine after an electrical system anomaly was detected while checking a similar third stage cryogenic engine in Europe. The launch window will be from 1952-2142 local time.
New BSkyB chief executive Tony Ball last week hit out at proposals to charge a supplementary BBC licence fee to viewers who subscribed to digital television. Writing in The Guardian newspaper, Ball described the digital fee as "unfair on consumers" and said it "flies in the face of government policy, and*absolutely unnecessary." He called for a transfer of additional BBC digital channels to the corporation’s commercial arm as subscription services.
ICO Global Communications, currently in the midst of a major finanical crisis announced that PT Indosat received a full frequency spectrum licence from the government of Indonesia to operate an ICO satellite ground station in the country. PT Indosat, an ICO strategic investor, will operate a feeder-link earth station in the 5/7 GHz range from a satellite access node located at Banyu Urip near Surabaya, Indonesia. The Indonesia SAN is the fourth of ICO’s 12 ground stations worldwide to receive operating authority. All the others are in Chile, India and the United States.
Pan-European cable operator United Pan-Europe Communications (UPC) has (through its wholly-owned subsidiary Bison Acquisition Corp, completed its tender offer for all the outstanding common stock shares of Polish cable and satellite pay-TV operator @Entertainment.
US DBS operator Echostar annonced that its Echostar V satellite has arrived at Cape Canaveral in preparation for its launch. The satellite, to be launched on a Lockheed Martin IIAS on September 10, is bound for 110 degrees West, and will allow Echostar to provide some 500 channels to viewers via a single dish pointed at the 110 and 119 degrees West slots. The satellite will also give Alaska and Hawaii access to DBS services for the first time. Meanwhile, Echostar reported total revenues of $350 million for quarter to June 30, a 42 per cent increase on the same period last year. The company reported a net loss of $76 million for the three months, compared with $46 million in 1998.
California-based DiviCom has been selected to implement China’s first DTH satellite service for the China Broadcasting Film Television Satellite Co. Ltd. DiviCom will provide the CBSat service with headend technology, including encoding, statistical multiplexing and integrated network management equipment.
Qatar-based satellite channel Al-Jazeera reportedly is now allowed to report from Kuwait again following a ban for allowing on-air criticism of the country’s ruler, Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah, illegal under Kuwait law. The ban was enforced by Kuwait’s information minister on June 19.
The Spanish Court of Justice has rejected the 1997 appeal of Canal Plus-backed pay-TV operator Canal Satelite Digital against the country’s digital TV law, which specified a single open standard for the Spanish pay-TV market, allowing Via Digital’s services to be accessed via Canal Satelite decoders.

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