1500 Channels Today
While another company might talk about 1500 channels in the future, Eutelsat's satellites currently broadcast a total of 1500 TV channels to an audience of 137 million cable and satellite homes in Europe, North Africa and the near Middle East.
"There is an increasing interest in free-to-air reception, and we see the emergence over the last year of new digital channels in eastern European countries such as Bulgaria and Albania and in North African countries like Morocco and Algeria," says Vanessa O'Connor, Eutelsat's director of corporate communications. "There is also a growing interest by Asian broadcasters in addressing ethnic groups in Europe. For example, ABS-CBN from the Philippines began broadcasting on Eutelsat in 2004."
Of the 150 million cable/satellite homes in Europe, North Africa and the near Middle East, 76 million are direct-to-home (DTH) that experienced an 11 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between 2002 and 2004 period in comparison to four percent for cable in the same period, according to O'Connor. In western and eastern Europe, DTH satellite has kept increasing at the relatively high rate of five percent CAGR from 2002 to 2004.
A total of five high-power satellites now occupy the Hot Bird slot at 13 degreesE that serves 45 million homes with pay-TV clients including
TPS, Sky Italia, Cyfra + and free-to-air channels for broadcasting in Europe, North Africa and the near Middle East.
As far as HDTV is concerned, Eutelsat is a founding member of the HD Forum, established in July, 2004 in France where broadcaster TPS plans to launch its first HD channels on Eutelsat before the end of 2005, according to O'Connor.
Get Ready For Global Satellite Radio Coverage
By the end of 2006, Worldspace Corp. intends to launch its third satellite in order to address the European market, according to Frehiwot Haileleoul, media relations manager at Worldspace, who was not prepared to divulge any details about the launch at this time.
"Worldspace provides over 40 plus audio channels to customers in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and parts of Europe using two satellites, AfriStar and AsiaStar. AfriStar covers Africa, the Middle East and Western Europe, while AsiaStar reaches India, China and Southeast Asia," says Haileleoul.
While there is growing demand for Worldspace services in many emerging and underserved markets of the world, there is still the challenge of identifying and delivering the right mix of services via satellite to multiple cultures and language groups over a broad footprint.
"Worldspace covers an area with over five billion people. Our coverage area includes China and India, two of the fastest growing economies in the world. This diversity makes it a challenge to understand the right content and language mix that would appeal to our customer base," says Haileleoul. "In addition, our marketing needs to be sensitive to our different cultures. While we are aware that needs change over time, at the same time, Worldspace is the only company to provide satellite radio in our markets."
Haileleoul says the early adopter phase of the service has ended and that Worldspace is now approaching mass market in some of its target areas.
"Wide awareness of our service is seen in India as well as a growing acceptance in other markets. Satellite radio has come from being an unknown concept to gaining immense credibility in the American markets," says Haileleoul. "The success of satellite radio in the United States has had a very positive effect in our getting awareness in our target markets as well."
Worldspace has big plans to hit the highway in the same way as Sirius and XM It is already established in two of the fastest growing automobile markets in the world, India and China. To this end, Worldspace intends to leverage its existing AfriStar satellite to provide a DARS offering to one or more western European markets, according to Haileleoul.
"While we currently provide service to Europe via AfriStar, this service is limited to fixed and portable receivers. Convergence in the marketplace is a key driver for us to design our next generation of receivers," Haileleoul says. "Our receivers will be available in cars, as handheld devices and will have optional features such as personal stock ticker, sports ticker, clock and will be upgradeable to include future enhancements such as integrated audio, video and multimedia and GPS."
Email
Comments
Print
Reuse
