Spotlight: Concert Helps To Raise Funds To Fight AIDS

A star-studded music concert in Cape Town, South Africa, broadcast worldwide via satellite helped to raise money and awareness to fight AIDS. The three-hour concert on Nov. 29 was made available internationally for rights-free redistribution by broadcasters to what was a potential audience of two billion people.

The South African Broadcasting Corporation used the Europe*Star 1 satellite for regional distribution of the concert. A second feed on Europe*Star 1 simultaneously broadcast the concert to Europe. From there, it was made available for redistribution through affiliates of the European Broadcasting Union and Asian Broadcasting Union. The two unions have a combined membership of more than 100 broadcasters. BBC World Service also broadcast the concert on radio.

The Europe*Star 1 satellite, brought into service at the start of 2001, has five high-performance beams covering Europe, Southern Africa, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and South East Asia, company officials said. The company also operates the Europe*Star B satellite that provides additional capacity for markets in Central and Eastern Europe. A unit of Alcatel [NYSE: ALA], Europe*Star is headquartered in London and has regional marketing offices in Cape Town and New Delhi.

–Paul Dykewicz

(Irina Petrov, Europe Star, 44 (0)20 8831 4526)