Opportunities in the European Satellite Market
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Back to Contents 1 September 2003 WORLDWIDE SATELLITE MAGAZINE Opportunities in the European Satellite Market SATMAGAZINE.COM TABLE OF Click on the title to go CONTENTS directly to the story COVER STORY FEATURES 9 / US Programmers: 13/ Will Satellite 15/ Set Top Box PVR’s: 17/ VSAT4D in India: Now Franchising Deliver Mass Market “A long-term India’s ISRO Deploys Internet Service to opportunity” VSAT’s in in Europe Europe? Progressive “IC4TD” Telemedicine By Dan Freyer By Chris Forrester By Howard Greenfield Projects With over 211 million Europe has been a testing TV homes, 64 million The market for Personal ground for many years for Video Recorders (PVRs) in By Stuart Browne of which are cable internet via satellite with Europe is steadily growing. VSAT technology is used for homes, and over 42 numerous companies on Chris Forrester examines the social and economic million satellite DTH the frontier including long-term prospects of this development projects in homes, it is easy to British Telecom (UK), market niche. India. understand why Eutelsat (France), Europe Europe has attracted Online (Luxembourg), and so many American Tiscali (Italy). broadcasters. FEATURES TECHNICAL REGULAR TUTORIAL VIEWPOINT DEPARTMENTS 3 / Note from the Editor-EMEA 4 / Calendar of Events 5/ Industry News 7 / Executive Moves 24/ DOD Satcom 20 / From Aerial to 22 / Bringing VPNs 23/ Advertisers’ Index Dish: How Satellites and Broadband Procurement: Changed Satellite Time for a 28/ New Products and Services Change Broadcasting Connections 30/ Market Intelligence: Iran Together By David Helfgott (by the Global VSAT Forum) By Bruce Elbert By John Puetz Americom Government Bruce Elbert traces the Services CEO David history of broadcasting Virtual private network Helfgott airs his views on from the shortwae aerial (VPN) allows users to the government’s to the satellite dish. communicate and procurement process for access information satellite services. securely over the public Internet or other non- private IP-based networks. Back to Contents 3 NOTE FROM THE EDITOR-Europe, Middle East and Africa Published monthly by Don’t Ignore Radio Satnews Publishers here’s one element of satellite-delivered entertainment 800 Siesta Way, that’s often overlooked. Radio. Even though the Sonoma, CA 95476 USA T industry is watching closely how the US-based pay- Phone (707) 939-9306 radio services of XM and Sirius progress - and their clones in Fax (707) 939-9235 Japan and Europe - the ignored element is ordinary DTH radio E-mail: [email protected] delivered in digital from satellite. Most satellite platforms Website: www.satmagazine.com already deliver hundreds of radio stations and a recent UK EDITORIAL study has proved what those broadcasters already know: people like listening to radio through a TV set. Silvano Payne Publisher Britain is not unusual in that Sky offer 80 free radio stations, plus another 40 Music Choice pay-radio channels as well as 20-odd music-based video Virgil Labrador channels. The UK’s official audience measurement company RAJAR, in their Managing Editor August data, say 62% of multichannel households listen to radio from their and Editor, The Americas TV set every week. Taking the whole of the UK, the RAJAR study says Chris Forrester radio listening via the TV has risen steadily over the past year helped by the Editor, Europe, Middle East growth of digital TV (from 13% to 20%). It means that Capital Radio, and Africa normally only available in the London region, is seeing its listening figures boosted by one third helped by satellite’s nationwide coverage. Other Stuart P. Browne stations have seen similar spectacular results. Editor, Asia-Pacific The RAJAR data also shows that Internet-listening is on the up, but this Contributing Writers: skews towards 15-25 year-olds. But of the near-20% that listen through the TV set, the RAJAR study shows that the proportion in each age group, John Puetz, Bruce Elbert gender split, or social category only varies very slightly between 58% and Dan Freyer, Howard Greenfield 67%. In other words radio-via-TV almost perfectly represents the typical UK The Americas listening audience. Peter Marshall, Roger Stanyard Rupert Steele, head of Research at OPUS (a UK media sales business) has a Europe theory why listening to radio-via-TV is so popular, and puts it down to the lack of radio sets in the living room. It seems that while users listen to radio Baden Woodford in the kitchen, bedroom and even the bathroom, we don’t have sets in the Africa main family room! Another answer might be that more homes have dedicated home cinema stereo or surround-sound systems, where the Digi-box is Advertising Sales: already plumbed into the Hi-Fi system. A third option is that digi-boxes have Jill Durfee easy-to-use EPGs, that list the stations in an obvious manner and that there ([email protected]) is no tuning of dials or complicated buttons to press. Finally, the supply of radio stations to ‘out of region’ listeners cannot be ignored. Joyce Schneider ([email protected]) And the broadcast stations find the whole system very cheap to access. There’s a modest uplink cost and space segment to buy, but the whole cost is well below $100,000 p/a. That might sound expensive, but in the UK it Satnews Publishers is the leading provider of information works out at less than 2 Cents per annum per home! And in the UK, radio on the worldwide satellite broadcasters know that by the end of 2004 they’ll have another 1m homes industry. Fore more informa- (8m in total) able to listen in, lowering the cost even further. tion, go to www.satnews.com. My advice to satellite platforms: Don’t ignore radio. Viewers love it. Copyright © 2003 Satnews Publishers All rights reserved. SATMAGAZINE.COM Back to Contents 4 CALENDAR OF EVENTS SEPTEMBER September 2-7 Istanbul, Turkey CeBIT Bilisim Eurasia Tel: +90 212 212 3122 Fax: +90 212 212 3121 Email: [email protected] Web: www.cebitbilisim.com September 11-16 RAI Convention Center, Amsterdam IBC 2003 Email: [email protected] Web: www.ibc.org September 16-19 London, UK COMSYS VSAT 2003 Conference Tel: +44-1727-832288 E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.comsys.co.uk September 18-23 Shanghai, China CeBIT Asia Tel: +86 21 6886 3286 / Fax: +86 21 6886 3797 E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.cebit-asia.com OCTOBER October 1-2 Tehran, Iran Middle East Satellite Summit 2003 Tel. +44-1727-884-627 E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.gvf.org October 2-4 Vicenza Fair, Italy SatExpo 2003 Tel. +39 0444 543133 E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.satexpo.it October 12-18 Geneva, Switzerland ITU Telecom World 2003 Tel. +41-22-730-6161 Fax +41-22-730-6444 E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.itu.int/world2003 October 14-17 Washington, D.C. Satellite Uplink Operators Training Seminar Tel. 202-429-5346 Web: www.nab.org/scitech/satsem2003.asp October 15-17 Mumbai, India Satellite & Cable TV India Trade Show 2003 Tel: +91-22-2494 8280 /+91 -22- 2498 4273 Fax no: +91-22-2496 3465 E-mail: [email protected] Web: http://www.scatmag.com October 23-26 Istanbul, Turkey Cebit Broadcast, Cable and Satellite Eurasia Tel: +90 212 245 3778 Fax: +90 212 245 3603 E-mail: [email protected] Web: http://www.hmist.com.tr/cebit-bcs/en/idx-en.htm October 28-30 Beijing, China China Satellite 2003 Tel: +86-10-84470266, 8447-0926 Fax: +86-10-84470267 E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.chinasatellite.org SATMAGAZINE.COM Back to Contents 5 INDUSTRY NEWS Rare Medium Group, Inc. Acquires Verestar and ESP; Changes Name to “SkyTerra Communciations, Inc.” Rare Medium Group, Inc. announced that it has executed definitive agreements to acquire satellite service provider, Verestar and engineering company Electronic System Products, Inc. (“ESP”) and and will change its name to SkyTerra Communications, Inc. Through a newly formed subsidiary, the Company will acquire approximately 67% (on a fully diluted basis) of the outstanding equity of Verestar, Inc. from its current owner, American Tower Corporation (ATC). Verestar is a provider of integrated satellite and fiber services to government organizations, multi-national corporations, broadcasters and communications companies. Headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia, Verestar currently is expected to generate over $130 million of annual revenues in 2003. Concurrent with execution of the definitive purchase agreement, Rare Medium agreed to purchase a $2.5 million senior secured note. Closing of the transaction is subject to Verestar achieving certain concessions from its satellite and terrestrial vendors, approval by the Federal Communications Commission and other customary closing conditions. At closing the Company will provide nominal consideration to the existing owner of Verestar in exchange for its equity interest. headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. vehicle system for IQStat, Inc., an Among their recent Atlanta based-privately held ESP is a 30-person engineering and accomplishments, ESP’s engineers company that measures radio product development firm, created the patent pending, in- listening habits and transmits the SATMAGAZINE.COM Back to Contents 6 INDUSTRY NEWS data over a national wireless centers, airports, and other public Research and Production Space communication network to IQStat’s places. They say during the start-up Center, as well as for the American operations center. IQ Stat intends to phase these small venues can play a Atlas rocket, built by Lockheed market the aggregated data to very important role to support the Martin Corp. broadcasters and advertisers to roll-out of the channel, to make allow real-time tracking of consumer viewers familiar with HD and to MEASAT-3 is a Boeing 601 model, behavior.