Thread: Satellite News February, 2010

ABC boss questions need for TV tender


ABC managing director Mark Scott has questioned why the ABC should have to tender every five years to continue running the Australia Network television service.
At parliamentary committee hearings in Canberra, Mr Scott argued for expanded international broadcasting to create what he called an "integrated radio and television brand", bringing Australia Network and Radio Australia closer together.
But Mr Scott says the tender process required by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) for the Australia Network is a constraint not faced by the ABC domestically or other public broadcasters like Britain's BBC.
"There are some disadvantages in arguing long-term sporting rights and satellite rights and others... 600 contracts we have to deal with with distributors when there's the instability that can come up around a tender basis," he said.
"But of course if we're asked to go to tender, we will."
Mr Scott also gave an undertaking to find out more about a recent Australian newspaper claim on whether a series of documentaries run by the ABC amount to pro-Chinese military propaganda.
He says the organisation is still in talks about broadcasting the international television service into China.
Restrictions on western broadcasts into China have prevented the Australia Network being broadcast there and negotiations with Chinese officials are continuing.
Mr Scott also told the committee that Chinese officials will often comment on Western coverage.
"But they certainly don't go through critiquing Australia Network programming," he said. "They are speaking more generally about western coverage of issues like Tibet."

Internet protocol TV braces for Australian push

IN the US it's often referred to as "over-the-top TV", but in Australia, it lurches along with the humble handle of internet protocol TV. Whatever you call it, there is little doubt that new services delivering high-quality video to the living room via an internet-connected TV, set-top box, Blu-ray player or gaming console are set to proliferate in Australia this year.
That's good news for viewers, as the variety of TV shows and movies available to watch at any given point will increase.
But there is little indication yet which models will prosper in a market still spooked by the spectre of slow broadband services and worried about picture quality and costly download fees.
Accenture's regional head of media and entertainment, James Scott -- himself a former pay-TV engineer -- says there's a misconception that broadband services in Australia are too slow to deliver high-quality video to the TV. "It depends where you are, but we are no further behind than our colleagues in Europe or North America," Scott says. "I would say there is a three- to five-year technology transition (to mass take-up of internet TV)." Among the new players already in the market are TiVo's set-top box and Apple TV, which deliver programs online to the TV set.
In December, Telstra began a trial in Victoria for its T-Box set-top box, which aims to bring its BigPond internet TV channels to homes around the country.
Telstra's head of voice, broadband and media Justin Milne says while it is "early days" for the T-Box, "it already seems to be a well-loved device by the people who are using it".
Telstra's promise to buyers of the T-Box is that content will be unmetered and packaged with a broadband subscription, effectively providing seven to eight new TV channels and movie downloads at little extra cost.
But according to some analysts, if Australia goes the way of other international markets, broadband fees are likely to fall, and people will begin signing up to ISPs based on the content they offer.
"That may not happen here this year, but in the long term the value will be created more on the peripheral than on the network itself," Deloitte media analyst Damien Tampling says.
Which leads us to the Malaysian-backed Fetch TV, which most observers say could be the "disruptive technology" that will spur on the development of local IPTV services, and probably spark a reaction from dominant pay-TV provider Foxtel. Fetch is planning to launch a pay-TV product this quarter in concert with several local internet service providers, delivered unmetered over a closed-network internet platform and priced lower than Foxtel.
Two questions are whether it will have a big enough potential customer base, with second-tier ISPs such as Internode and iiNet rather than No 2 player Optus
on board, and also whether it will have content that is compelling enough to persuade viewers to pay for it. Fetch TV chief executive Scott Lorson would not comment for this story but the group, backed by Malaysian billionaire T. Ananda Krishnan, is likely to be an active bidder for unique content, including live sports.

ASTRA slams licence fee rebates

Australia’s subscription TV lobby group, ASTRA, has branded the licence fee rebates the government will give to Seven, Nine and Ten “anti-competitive and against the interests of consumers”.
ASTRA (the Australian Subscription Television and Radio Association) has announced itself “surprised and disappointed” with the government’s decision to grant the large licence fee rebates to what it calls the “old commercial TV networks”.
The rebates are worth around A$240 million to the networks over the next two years, representing rebates of 33% in 2010 and 50% in 2011.
Announcing the measure, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said: “Broadcasters have a unique role in preserving our national culture and the commercial television sector invests hundreds of millions of dollars each year in the production of local content.
“However, they are faced with a converging media environment and switch to digital television, as well as the impact on revenue created by a decline in advertising spend as a result of the Global Financial Crisis.
“New media platforms are bringing a wealth of choice to Australian viewers, but the Government recognises that Australian television broadcasters have an important role in ensuring that Australian stories remain at the centre of our viewing experience.”
But ASTRA’s chief executive Petra Buchanan said: “Taxpayers are yet again being asked to subsidise the businesses of foreign owned broadcasters to help them meet existing content obligations – it’s an outrageous affront to Australians.
“Giving the old TV networks yet more protection just to maintain existing standards is the antithesis of modern media reform. It is couch potato policy that reduces their incentive to invest, compete and innovate, and ignores innovators such as the subscription television sector, which has no trouble meeting its own Australian content obligations year after year without a cent of Government assistance. By using taxpayers’ money to prop up the old players, innovation and competition in the television space will continue to be curbed.”
ASTRA’s statement additionally pointed out what it vcalls “the already very generous terms of access to spectrum”. These are: the networks’ spectrum allocation was doubled without an increase in their fees; they were gifted spectrum licences rather than having to obtain them at auction; and they failed to deliver a digital switchover by 2008 (the original date set many years ago), despite being gifted spectrum in exchange for this.”
“In addition,” continued the statement, “the pricing mechanism used to set the network’s licence fee provides the networks with riskless access to spectrum (as the fee is related to their revenue). In contrast the subscription television sector pays full commercial rates for access to satellite and cable bandwidth and bears all of the commercial risk.”
But the government’s move has, of course, been welcomed by Free TV Australia, the trade body representing the free-to-air networks.
Julie Flynn, Free TV’s chief executive said: ““The licence fee rebates are a timely recognition of the key role played by commercial broadcasters in delivering Australian content on television.
“Free TV broadcasters are the major underwriters of Australian content despite the challenge of competing media platforms and fragmenting audiences.” Free TV produced figures claiming that at A$282 million, licence fees paid by Australian broadcasters are A$12.95 per head, compared with the equivalent of A$1.08 per head of population in the UK and just A$0.07 in the USA.

Travel Channel to Launch on SKY Television

Travel Channel International and SKY Television confirmed today the launch of the Travel Channel on SKY on Saturday 1 May 2010.
Travel Channel, on SKY Digital channel 77, will provide viewers with quality programming on all aspects of the travel experience, from luxury getaways to backpacking adventures. The new channel will not only provide practical advice in selecting and planning real holidays but will also allow viewers to just sit back and enjoy experiencing fascinating places in the company of engaging presenters from all across the world. It is a ‘must see’ for those with a desire to venture beyond their front door.
Since its launch in London in 1994, Travel Channel has grown to serve cable and satellite audiences across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific, transmitting on 20 satellites in 18 languages. The deal with SKY Television makes the channel’s entertaining and inspirational mix of programmes available in New Zealand for the first time.
Travel Channel International Chief Executive Richard Wolfe said, “SKY is one of the most successful Pay TV providers in the world and it is a great privilege for us to be working with them to bring the channel here”.
“We think Travel Channel and New Zealand are made for each other, and we are looking forward to people here becoming part of our rapidly expanding international family of viewers. ”
John Fellet, SKY Television Chief Executive, said, “SKY Television is dedicated to continuing its ongoing commitment to provide unique, entertaining and exclusive television for New Zealanders - Travel Channel is a welcome addition to our platform.” The Travel Channel launches on SKY Digital Channel 77 Saturday 1 May 2010 at 6.00am and will be available to all SKY subscribers as part of SKY’s basic package.

EPL going online in Mid-East/Nth Africa


Stand by for a total broadband collapse in the Mid-East/North Africa! The English Premier League soccer matches are to be offered online from the start of this autumn’s season.

Abu Dhabi Media Company (ADMC), which owns and publishes The National newspaper (which broke the news), won a three-year contract for exclusive regional rights to broadcast the English soccer matches last year, but until now had not revealed how it planned to broadcast matches. Its television arm is made up of free-to-air satellite channels that EPL restrictions prohibit from broadcasting games because they might bleed into other regions. It was widely assumed within the industry that ADMC would resell its rights to a pay-TV broadcaster, or sub-licence them to terrestrial television in certain markets.

But Edward Borgerding, the chief executive of ADMC, rejected this model, saying that the move was a bid to help ramp up high-speed internet penetration in the region. “We bought the English Premier League, and you can look at this, and you can buy boxes and you can buy [smart] cards, and you can ship it out to something that the pirates in six months will hack, but the costs just sink the business,” Borgerding told The National. “We’ve seen it sink the pay-TV industry here since it started. Or is there a way to say, why don’t we distribute this online? Broadband is growing. Etisalat and du are taking broadband to people’s homes. Why don’t you just distribute football games online at zero cost? Well, that’s what we intend to do.”

The service would work similarly to the way Major League Baseball webcasting works in the US, in which viewers pay a $15 monthly fee for the right to stream games through online video. Viewers will have a choice between two methods of viewing the games over broadband – either web television or internet protocol television (IPTV) – or, in markets without good broadband penetration, a subscription to a high-definition satellite pay-TV service, delivered through a set-top box. Each offering will have a different price, and all offerings will be able to viewed on television screens if desired.

“This is something that we are going to try to drive into the marketplace in the Middle East now,” Borgerding said. “We are going to price it differentially, because it’s cheaper to do it online. We want to drive people to do this because it’s in our self interest to do this.”

His plan for distributing the EPL fell in line with two trends he highlighted for all media – the growing importance of partnerships with telecommunications companies, and the creation of subscription models to monetise media as it converges toward a single digital format. “The long-term future of media is going to be a subscription model,” he said. “Consumers will pay for things that they like. They will pay for content that they like and that they need. I think that’s the future, some combination of advertising-supported and subscription.”
Far from bemoaning the internet’s erosion of the profit margins of traditional media, Mr Borgerding celebrated all that telecoms and media companies had to gain from each other. He called the migration to the web a “perfect storm of win wins” for both sides. Broadband’s higher monthly bill creates more revenues for telecoms, while its greater capacity opens up new ways for media companies to make money. “For content owners, the fact that there are millions of people now hooking up to broadband around the world creates a model for us to monetise our content through those businesses,” he said.

MTG buys into Russia DTH

Modern Times Group is buying 50% of Russian satellite pay-TV operator Raduga TV.

Raduga is backed by Continental Media SA, and claims 70,000 subscribers who are watching more than 50 channels. The bouquet includes Russian channels as well as a portfolio of international channels being transmitted in Russian including Discovery, Eurosport and MTG-owned Viasat’s History and Explorer channels.

The Raduga TV channel package is priced at RUB300 (approximately US$10) per month on a three or six month pre-paid contract basis. The channels are encrypted with the Irdeto conditional access system and made available through the Asian Broadcasting Satellite ABS-1 (75? East) Northern Beam, which covers more than 90% of the Russian Federation and is managed by Russian satellite operator GeoTelecommunicatons (GT). Subscriptions can be purchased from retailers across Russia.

The remaining 50% interest in Raduga has been retained by Continental Media. The two owners will share management control of Raduga, which will be proportionately consolidated by MTG and reported in the Group’s ‘Pay-TV Emerging Markets’ business segment within the Viasat Broadcasting business area.

Viasat Broadcasting will now provide DTH satellite TV services in a total of nine countries – Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine and Russia – and distribute its Viasat branded channels via third party operators in 25 countries across Central and Eastern Europe and in the US. The nine platforms have over one million subscribers. The pay-TV channels had attracted over 39 million subscriptions as at end-Sep 2009.
Hans-Holger Albrecht, President and CEO of MTG, said: “We are delighted to have forged this strong partnership to develop a competitive pay-TV distribution platform in Europe’s largest market by number of TV households. Our Viasat channels are already well known by subscribers across Russia. We are an integrated TV broadcaster, operating free and pay-TV businesses across multiple markets, and Russia is one of the most attractive pay-TV markets in the world”.

Georgia’s Arduous Attempt to Challenge Moscow’s Broadcasting Monopoly

On January 4, the Georgian Public Broadcaster (GPB) inaugurated its first Russian language television channel: Pervyi Kavkazsky (First Caucasus) or 1-K. It initially operated as a cable television channel available within Georgia with simultaneous live broadcasting on the internet to reach a wider online audience.

On January 15, First Caucasus further widened its range of coverage by becoming available on the French-operated satellite provider Eutelsat, reaching a broader Russian speaking audience in the Russian Federation and across almost the entire post-Soviet space. On February 1, Eutelsat discontinued transmitting the channel, which immediately invoked suspicions that the Russian authorities were implicated in the decision.

Television channels in the Russian Federation are almost exclusively owned or at least heavily controlled by the state and, furthermore, they enjoy a near-monopoly on broadcasting in the Russian language throughout the entire post-Soviet space and beyond. Thus, it is not only in the North Caucasus that the Kremlin feared the Georgian channel might challenge its informational monopoly, but among the entire Russian-speaking population across Eurasia.

Oleg Panfilov, the Head of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations is a leading journalist and host on First Caucasus. An ethnic Russian, he was born in Tajikistan and spent much of his career in various parts of Central Asia, working on human rights and other humanitarian issues. Panfilov, highly respected both in Russia and Central Asia, has recently settled in Tbilisi, after spending several years in Moscow. Another internationally acclaimed individual working for First Caucasus, Alla Dudayeva, an ethnic Russian and widow of the late Chechen President Jokhar Dudayev, is also well-respected in the North Caucasus.

State-owned Russian media reacted critically to the appearance of First Caucasus and became almost hysterical after the Georgian channel started its satellite broadcasts. The Russian newspaper Kommersant immediately highlighted the fact that “First Caucasus transmits using a French satellite, which had been launched into orbit by the Russian rocket-carrier Proton from the space launch facility at Baikonur” (Kommersant, January 18). It also cited Giorgi Chanturia, the Head of GPB, as claiming that “the goal of First Caucasus is to inform the Russian public about Georgia and freely discuss developments in the North Caucasus…We would like to talk about things which are left out by other Russian-language TV channels.”

Pro-Russian forces in the Georgian opposition, including the former Prime Minister Zurab Noghaideli’s Movement for a Just Georgia, constantly voiced criticism against establishing First Caucasus. “President Mikheil Saakashvili needs this channel to harm Russia and its people,” said Petre Mamradze, Noghaideli’s associate. Giorgi Khaindrava, another pro-Russian figure in the Georgian opposition, was even more acrimonious: “Since this channel is viewed in Moscow as supportive of separatism in the North Caucasus, [Russian Prime Minister] Putin might order the bombing of central Tbilisi where the GPB is located” (Kommersant, Regnum, January 18).

In an interview on Georgia’s First TV Channel, GPB’s Levan Gakheladze said: “Eutelsat requested that the GPB should describe the content of the programs aired by First Caucasus.” He accused the French satellite provider of being “a tool of Russian censorship” (Georgia’s First TV Channel, February 2).

On February 2, the Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s spokesperson described the action against First Caucasus as “a very dangerous precedent of international political censorship” and called for the resumption of its broadcasting on the satellite “owned by the country [France], respected worldwide as a home of democracy (The Georgian President’s official website, February 2).

In an interview with the author, Oleg Panfilov mentioned several reasons why First Caucasus is viewed as “dangerous” by the Kremlin. In his opinion, unlike the Kremlin’s own propaganda machinery, the Russian language First Caucasus is aimed at disseminating balanced and objective information concerning Georgia, Russia and its regions, as well as other countries in the former Soviet Union. “The channel conveys a positive message,” he said, with its emphasis on historical, cultural and ethnic issues, human rights and other humanitarian topics. Panfilov also stressed the importance of spreading information about Georgia in Ukraine and in the Central Asian countries where the Kremlin-owned Russian TV channels have traditionally held a heavy influence over the Russian-speaking public. “During the Russian aggression against Georgia in August 2008, ordinary people in various parts of the post-Soviet space could not receive objective information in the Russian language, while the Kremlin enjoyed an information monopoly,” the First Caucasus journalist said. It is also worth recalling that during the war, the entire Georgian cyberspace was under attack most likely by Russian internet hackers, resulting in an almost complete shutdown of the Georgian government and private websites.

In Panfilov’s view, “propaganda is the single most important tool” for the current Russian leadership to influence both domestic and world opinion,” and “there is no doubt that the appearance of the alternative TV channel is seen in Moscow as a moral danger that has to be avoided at all costs.” The journalist argues that in addition to political pressure that the Russian authorities exerted on the French-owned Eutelsat, there was an “important commercial intimidation,” since, he alleges, Gazprom threatened the French satellite provider “to withdraw its 28 or so channels from Eutelsat if First Caucasus continued broadcasting.”

Panfilov who was “forced” to leave Moscow for his political views, sees Georgia as a “viable alternative” in the largely authoritarian post-Soviet space where the Kremlin almost exclusively shapes political trends. Georgia’s liberal political and economic system, in Panfilov’s opinion, could become an information target for the Russian leadership. “I believe that First Caucasus has to have a type of mission Radio Liberty pursued in its first decades, in 1950’s and 1960’s.”
It remains to be seen if First Caucasus will regain its satellite broadcasting rights. GPB has already launched a lawsuit against the French company in a Paris court. Analysts, such as Oleg Panfilov, consider that the French court’s verdict will show whether justice, equality and free speech still matter in international relations or whether “other considerations” have an overriding power.

Intelsat S.A. announced today that its Intelsat 4 satellite (IS-4), located at 72? East Longitude, experienced an anomaly on 1 February 2010 at approximately 00:18 GMT.
Intelsat is working with affected customers to identify restoration capacity