11 June 2013
GlobeCast and SES (NYSE Euronext Paris and Luxembourg Stock Exchange: SESG) announced today that they are providing services to Orange Romania for the launch of a high-quality direct-to-home satellite TV package this month. The package will use multiple transponders on ASTRA’s 31.5 degrees East orbital position and will be broadcast in the DVB-S2 and MPEG4 technical standards. GlobeCast will provide contribution, encryption, and encoding for SD and HD channels in the package.
Orange Romania will launch the new TV package to complement its existing mobile service, enabling the company to offer full multi-device communication services to its customers. Orange Romania booked this service through GlobeCast, which is providing a complete solution to bring Orange Romania’s channels to the point of uplink and prepare them for broadcast on capacity that GlobeCast has leased from SES.
“Today OrangeRomaniais ready to provide high-quality television services and to offer our Romanian customers truly attractive packages,” said Jean-Francois Fallacher, Chief Executive Officer of OrangeRomania. “Orange TV means the highest number of HD TV channels, the best satellite beam strength and coverage, dedicated customer care, multiscreen access, a smaller and efficient dish, and other remarkable features that will allow us to offer an amazing TV experience. All these were brought to life with Orange Group’s expertise and solid partnerships we developed with world-renowned companies in the TV industry.”
“Our offices worldwide collaborated to ensure a full technical solution for GlobeCast’s customer, OrangeRomania, beginning with reception of the channels fromBucharestand ending with handoff to our partner SES for uplink to their powerful satellite,” said Philippe Fort, Chief Operating Officer of GlobeCast. “We are proud of the result and will continue to ensure excellent quality of service on the platform, leading to a high-quality experience for the viewer.”
“Telecommunication operators increasingly invest in content distribution in order to complement their existing services,” said Ferdinand Kayser, Chief Commercial Officer of SES. “This agreement shows the growing importance of satellite as a technical infrastructure for linear television packages of telecommunication operators. In addition to its unrivalled technical reach, satellite offers a fixed cost structure that is not dependent on the number of households receiving a TV service. We are delighted that Orange Romania decided to launch its new service via ASTRA. This confirms the leading role that SES plays in central and Eastern Europe and shows that our orbital slot 31.5 degrees East is becoming a new hot spot in this region.”
10 June 2013
Arab Satellite Communications organization – Arabsat – was awarded “Best Satellite Operator of the Year” while participating at SATCOM Africa 2013 inJohannesburg,South Africa.
Arabsat was chosen for this year’s award since it has met the criteria for the award by being the service provider who has made a difference to the satellite industry in Africa, also being the satellite operator who made new and innovative services available and accommodated the changing needs of the system inAfrica.
Eng \ Khalid bin Ahmed Balkhyour, President & CEO of Arabsat said “We are very pleased with this award, as it crowned the efforts of Arabsat to expand the geographical coverage to serve all customers in the African continent and in all coverage areas, as well as the services offered by Arabsat through its up to date fleet, which is considered the youngest in the region, the latest of which is Badr -7, the first satellite of the 6th generation satellites, which was designed according to the latest technologies including satellite broadcast and telecommunications, creating a new era of convergence between satellite communication and TV broadcasting at Arabsat 26° East (Hot Spot), due to be launched in 2015.”
Arabsat previously won the award for best satellite service provider at Satcom Africa 2010.
About Arabsat: Founded in 1976, Arabsat has been serving the growing needs of the Arab world for over 30 years. Now one of the world’s top satellite operators and by far the leading satellite services provider in the Arab world, it carries over 450 TV channels, 160 radio stations, 4 Pay-TV networks and wide variety of HD channels reaching tens of millions of homes in more than 80 countries across the Middle East, Africa, Europe—and way beyond around the world—including an audience of over 170 million viewers in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region alone tuned into Arabsat’s video “hotspot” at 26° East.
Operating a growing fleet of owned satellites at the 20° East, 26° East, 30.5° East and 34.5° East positions of the geostationary orbit, ARABSAT is the only satellite operator in the MENA region offering the full spectrum of Broadcast, Telecommunications and Broadband services. This capacity will continue to expand with the launching of new satellites, making the ARABSAT satellites’ fleet the youngest in the region.
www.arabsat.com
10 June 2013
Following its launch in to The Netherlands last year, Horse & Country TV (Sky Channel 280), the specialist equestrian sports and lifestyle network, continues its international expansion by launching into Swedenin June 2013 via the cloud-based TV delivery service, Magine.
Magine will initially host Horse & Country TV’s UK-version channel, which will be replaced by the specially created Swedish version containing localised programming later in the summer.
Horse & Country TV Director of International Distribution, Wayne Dunsford said: “This is a major development for Horse & Country TV as we increase our international presence. Magine represents an exciting opportunity for us to enter the Swedish market for the first time. We are delighted that they have recognised that there is a large and passionate audience for equestrian sports and country lifestyle in Sweden and we very much look forward to working with Magine’s experienced and ambitious team in making the channel a success. We will be making further announcements about our Swedish channel in the near future.”
Magine’s Chairman, Michael Werner added: “Magine launched inSweden this spring with other European territories to come this summer. Horse & Country TV is unique inSweden and a great addition to the roster of national and international channels that have joined our cloud based delivery service. We are convinced that a quality, specialist channel like this will act as a driver to subscribers who will be able to access their favourite equestrian sports on any device, anywhere and anytime thanks to Magine’s pioneering UI.”
3 June 2013
RT’s YouTube channel becomes the first television news channel ever to reach the one billion views mark, confirming RT’s status as the top news content provider on the world’s largest video-sharing platform.
Robert Kyncl, Google VP and Head of Content for YouTube said that his organization is “thrilled that RT is getting to that number. It’s a massive landmark.” He noted that the key to success is “audience development…Programmers such as RT understanding that YouTube is different and that you have to program it slightly differently than the airwaves.” Kyncl added the payoff is seen in RT’s “numbers; it’s paying off in consumer adoption and response rates… It’s something that has to be both learned and earned and RT has been a great partner in that.[1]”
“RT, the Russian TV channel, is YouTube’s largest ‘news’ partner in the world,” said Danielle Tiedt, YouTube’s VP of marketing. “Very few of our partners can boast a billion video views, and RT will be the first news channel to get to this number. RT was one of the first channels to come to YouTube, back in 2007, and to create video content aimed specifically at ‘generation C’ – the kind of content that our users gladly watch and share.[2]”
“A billion hits – that’s a stunning result. From RT’s very first days we knew that in the nearest future the battle for viewers will be taking place on the Internet, on new platforms. This is why we are especially proud and happy to be the first. This is an amazing achievement for a Russian news channel – to become a major provider of news in the space that reaches the most important, young audience,” said RT’s editor in chief Margarita Simonyan.
RT was the first Russian TV channel to launch a YouTube portal, in 2007. In 2011 RT’s news video became the most watched YouTube news item of year[3]. A 2012 study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism highlighted RT as by far the largest provider of news video footage on the platform. The research also concluded that RT produced the most popular individual videos[4]. RT’s montage of eyewitness footage of the February 2013 Siberian meteor blast became the most watched video of the event on YouTube, accumulating more than 30 million views in less than a week[5].
RT is a global international news network that broadcasts 24/7 in English, Arabic and Spanish from its studios in Moscow and Washington, DC, and is available to 630 million viewers worldwide. RT is the only Russian TV channel to garner two nominations for the prestigious International Emmy Award.
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q261FLRcfas
2 http://lenta.ru/articles/2013/05/18/youtube/
3 http://rt.com/about-us/press-releases/most-watched-news-youtube-2011/
4 http://rt.com/about-us/press-releases/pew-study-rt-produces-most-popular-content-on-youtube/
5 http://rt.com/about-us/press-releases/meteor-video-shatters-records/
3 June 2013
Dailymotion, the world’s second largest video portal, is building upon its sports content through a strategic partnership with sntv.
A joint venture between IMG and Associated Press, sntv is the world’s leading sports video news agency. Its sole aim is to provide the best, most relevant, comprehensive and fast sports news service there is. Founded in 1996, sntv has become an indispensable service for more than 400 international broadcasters and digital platforms. Over the years sntv has developed relationships with all of the major rights-holders to enable it to cover the majority of the most prestigious global sports or events.
sntv’s crews are present at all major sporting events such as the Olympic Games, World Cup, Grand Slam tennis events and major golf tournaments. From there they provide previews and reaction with all interviews done in both English and native tongue whenever possible. This content will be uploaded onto Dailymotion (approximately ten videos per day) and available free of charge to Dailymotion’s viewers around the world.
Marc Eychenne, Head of International Content at Dailymotion, says: “Dailymotion is committed to growing its sports content, to deliver its global audience with access to the most up to date sports news, live games and competitions, as well as archived and VOD material. Our deal with sntv is the next step in this progression and will deliver many hours of sports news to our archive of sports content. We intend to build on this in the coming months with further deals for live and archived sports content, all designed to make Dailymotion the home of sport online.”
Elizabeth Eastham, Sales Manager of sntv said, “The partnership with Dailymotion is very exciting as it brings the breadth and editorial quality of sntv to a broader digital audience. We are continually extending our market-leading services and working with Daily Motion ensures we can have additional platform to deliver relevant sports news to the global audience.’’
See sntv on Dailymotion here: http://www.dailymotion.com/SNTV
