NEWS BYTES

Ariane flight 127, Japan’s Superbird-4 craft, was successfully launched last Thursday, February 17. The Ariane 44LP rocket, equipped with two liquid and two solid strap-on boosters, blasted off at 2204 (0104 GMT Friday) from Kourou. The 4.1 tonne satellite, a Hughes HS601P, will provide television, Internet and data transmissions throughout Japan for Tokyo-based SCC.

Former BSkyB CEO Sam Chisholm and his deputy David Chance have come up trumps again, winning a huge settlement of their claim against football’s English Premier League, sharing a reported pounds12 million. In late 1998 the league’s then chief executive, Peter Leaver, hired Chisholm and Chance for pounds650,000 each to advise clubs on the sale of TV rights. In addition, the pair were entitled to 5 per cent of any additional income they brought to the table. One insider said the amount could have easily totalled pounds35-45 million. However, the league reneged on the contracts, dismissing Leaver in the process. The 20 soccer clubs which make up the league, including Tottenham Hotspur, where Chisholm is a director, and Sunderland, where Chance sits on the board, have to pay pounds600,000 each towards the settlement.

CNN-Turk has hit its first problem with the Turkish media regulator. Local broadcasting rules dictate what can and cannot be said on air about Turkey, and it is alleged that CNN-Turk transgressed one of these regulations with a January interview. A warning has been issued to CNN-Turk, to which CNN is considering its response.

Canal Plus now has over 1.8 million subscribers in Spain, meaning more than seven million people watch the channel, with 43.6 per cent subscribing to Canal Satélite Digital. A total of 1,015,000 homes still take the Canal Plus analogue signal. During 1999 Canal grew 10.83 per cent, by 34,172 homes. Santiago Tapia has taken over as Canal Satélite Digital’s managing director substituting Jaume Ferrus who left the company more than a year ago.

Turner Broadcasting has signed TCM and Cartoon Network as well as CNNI to the new Israeli satellite DTH platform DBS Sat Ltd. The three 24 hour Turner channels will go on air mid-May. TCM will quickly be ramped up to about 80 per cent Hebrew sub-titling.

Spain’s Indra technology group and Alcatel Space have signed an agreement for co-operation in the space sector. Under the existing agreement between the two companies, Thomson-CSF will transfer its 49 per cent stake in Indra Espacio to Alcatel, with Indra retaining control of the remaining 51 per cent. The agreement is a further step on the road to integration of the European space industry, marking the absorption of the Spanish space unit by one of the two big European space groups. Thomson-CSF will retain its 10.5 per cent stake in Indra itself.

Russia’s Intersputnik has said it will begin providing telecommunication services via the new series of Express-A satellites in April. The first of the new satellites, Express-6A, is expected to be launched at the beginning of next month, destined for 80 degrees East on board a Proton launcher from Baikonur. Express-3A will follow in June, to replace Statsionar-11 at 11 degrees West. Alcatel Space is supplying components for the satellites, which are being built at Zheleznogorsk in Russia.

GE Americom has appointed Eddy Frankland as managing director, European sales, global satellite services. Frankland, who will head up GE’s offices in London and satellite offices in Munich, Budapest and elsewhere, previously was managing director of PanAmSat Europe.

Fox Sports International will launch on May 5 over Central and Eastern Europe. Fox Sports will broadcast 11 hours per day, seven days per week on Eutelsat’s Hotbird from 1900-0600 CET. Fox Sports claims it will be the first regional sports channel targeted exclusively to audiences in Russia, Romania, Turkey, Hungary, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and other key markets. The channel will be marketed in Central and Eastern Europe by Fox Kids Europe.

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