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is tough, and our rivals do all they can to tempt channels away and sometimes succeed with heavily discounted prices. This is natural and fair game, but some broadcasters play that game very well and having enjoyed our incentives will happily go somewhere else where another incentive is on offer. Some – not too many – just hop from one satellite to another. We’ re wise to them.” Boustany says that there is a growing shift towards HDTV by his clients.“ The major broadcasters are migrating to HD and we are carrying 25 channels in HD, this 10 per cent or so and steadily growing in number.”
According to Boustany, his shareholders are well aware that the satellite is filling up.“ We are looking at many alternatives, and at viable ways to grow by securing extra capacity without waiting three or four years for a new satellite. We are totally committed to focusing on our neighbourhoods, and I am not advocating establishing another orbital slot. Never say never, of course, but we can tap into YahSat and SES by way of infrastructure, frequencies and extra transponder space as well as financial support. But we do have concrete plans and it is now a question of our shareholders deciding when to press the button, and why are we pressing the button,” he admits.
“ Right now, we have enough capacity, and we are very mindful that expansion costs money and that means a capital investment. We can manage for the next year or so, and we know that decisions must be taken. One point worth making is that both my shareholders own some key assets, and that when needed we can call on them. It is a great position to be in. We have expansion rights in Ku-band, but our preference is to see ownership under YahLive’ s model. So, however we expand, it would be our desire to see those assets or infrastructure under our control,” he revealed.
He adds that transponder bandwidth prices are staying firm.“ We are happy with where we are. We know that there will
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“ There is not enough content in native UHD for a linear channel.”- Ali Ahmed Al Kuwari, Es’ HailSat |
be growing pains and investments to win support from broadcasters. Price incentives are a well-known process, and is natural for
Eutelsat + Nilesat: A powerful combination
Eutelsat shares the Nilesat orbital position at 7 / 8 degrees West, and is carrying hundreds of channels to an audience of some 52.3m homes spread over 14 Arab-language countries. Recent data from Eutelsat talks of HD clearly gaining traction, with the number of HD-equipped homes crossing a threshold of 20m, up from 14.4m and now accounting for 34 % of TV homes in the region.
This percentage is even higher within the 7 / 8 West audience( 46 %). Looking ahead, the seeds are being sown for the Ultra HD market, with 50 % of people interviewed for our survey aware of Ultra HD. In February 2017 Eutelsat said it was carrying about 150 HDTV channels( up 40 % in a year) into the region, and that HD now“ outnumbered” standarddefinition.
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us. But our clients, many of whom are young entrepreneurs operating in the OTT space, are adding channels and it is key that they reach viewers via satellite. Often, there is either zero connectivity, or else poor connectivity. And in some cases, it isn’ t going to get better! Satellite is the solution and we’ re providing this. Our strategy has always been focused, and not simply to give capacity away. That’ s easy but we need profitability. We have succeeded with the Farsi market and are meeting our financial objectives for shareholders, and we’ ll continue,” he confirmed. EXPANSION. Undoubtedly Arabsat has invested heavily in new capacity, and continues to do so. CEO Khalid Balkheyour says there’ s no sign of this investment slowing. A $ 700m + investment back in 2013 to acquire the HellasSat satellites – and their orbital positions – is now paying tangible dividends, he says. Arabsat’ s latest satellite, Badr-7 is doing well.“ It has back-up payloads and Kaband and it also serves central Asia and West Africa. We are filling her well. There is a lot of demand for its Ka-band spot beams, and there are new contracts pending from the government sector.”
“ Arabsat 6A is on schedule, and I expect launch in Q1 / 2018, with SpaceX,” he adds.“ The launch we shifted was HellasSat-3 which we switched, with our partners( Inmarsat), to Arianespace. Arabsat 6A’ s mission is a mainly BSS craft, with a DTH mission for central Asia and MENA, it will have plenty of Ka-band capacity most of which is pre-sold to the government sector. We are really anxious to get the satellite onto its orbit, and to start serving central Asia which is a new market for us and takes us further East.”
Moreover, Arabsat has other expansion in mind.“ We have Request for Proposals( RFP) out now. There originally was talk of three satellites when we invited tenders for our recent expansion. One ended up with our joint-venture satellite with Inmarsat and which Thales is building. The other pair were procured with Lockheed-Martin, almost three years ago. The new RFP is for Arabsat 6D and is under evaluation now, and this will be a new mission and be placed at 44.5 degrees East, targeting data and it will be a highthroughput satellite for us and our partner
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