Company contribution
Company contribution
Delivering the Next Generation of Media Distribution
Jon Sonsteby, VP of North America Sales at SES, talks about navigating the region’ s C-band transition and how hybrid distribution is redefining the future of global media delivery.
A pivotal moment for the broadcast industry
The media distribution landscape is evolving faster than at any point in recent decades. Distribution technologies now combine the unmatched reach of linear broadcasting with the convenience of nonlinear, on-demand viewing. This creates new opportunities to monetise content libraries, enable binge-worthy experiences, and deliver the thrill of live events to millions- even billions- of viewers worldwide.
As content production continues to accelerate- global spending reached $ 247 billion in 2024- that content is now delivered across more partners, platforms, and regions than ever before. Broadcasters, content owners, and platform operators are navigating a complex mix of forces: the rapid growth of streaming, fragmented audiences, shifting regulations, and the need to maintain resilient infrastructure capable of delivering premium live content.
At the same time, consumer expectations continue to rise. Consumers demand that content is accessible on any device, in any location, at any time. Media companies are responsible for ensuring flawless delivery, whether from cable headends and regional broadcasters to OTT platforms and FAST aggregators.
Behind every consumer stream is a chain of partners making that experience possible. For broadcasters, this means managing growing operational complexity. It is no surprise that many are stepping back to reassess a fundamental question: what should they own, and what should they outsource?
A clear shift is emerging. Broadcasters and content owners are reallocating time, talent, and investment toward the areas that drive growth- content development, monetisation, and platform strategy. Whether expanding direct-to-consumer services, scaling FAST distribution, or protecting linear revenues, the focus is on what directly impacts audience growth and business performance.
At the same time, managing RF uplinks, coordinating terrestrial distribution, and overseeing multi-vendor operations across regions remain resource-intensive and costly. Increasingly, these functions are being externalised to simplify operations and improve efficiency.
By providing fully managed, hybrid satellite and terrestrial distribution services, SES enables customers to offload operational complexity while benefiting from scalable, globally integrated infrastructure. All while delivering access to over 2.3 billion end viewers. This shift from infrastructure ownership to service-based models allows media companies to focus on strategy, revenue, and content.
The combination of SES and Intelsat further strengthens this capability. Together, the two companies have created a global infrastructure designed for the next generation of media distribution, including around 90 geostationary satellites, nearly 30 medium Earth orbit satellites, more than 150 teleports, 50 points of presence, and over 500,000 miles of fibre worldwide, all designed, integrated and managed for our media customers.
This network distributes more than 10,900 television channels, reaching over 2.3 billion viewers and covering 99 % of the world’ s populated regions. Across these markets, broadcasters benefit from 37 premium neighborhoods, more than 30 direct-to-home platforms, and access to over 700 million TV homes.
For media companies, this scale delivers a critical advantage: the ability to reach audiences reliably across both traditional broadcast and rapidly evolving digital distribution environments.
As the industry continues to evolve, broadcasters must also adapt to structural changes shaping how distribution networks are designed. In North America, one of the most significant of these is the ongoing transition of C-band spectrum.
Navigating the C-band transition
For decades, C-band satellite spectrum has been and still is the backbone of broadcast distribution across North America. Its ability to provide resilient, wide coverage at the lowest cost per viewer made it the preferred choice for delivering television signals to cable headends, broadcast affiliates, and distribution partners across the continent.
However, the rapid expansion of 5G services, and the lack of available mid-band spectrum in North America, has led regulators to a major reallocation of spectrum. In the United States, 280 MHz of the C-band was cleared for mobile operators to deploy new networks and lead the world in 5G rollout and adoption. In that process, satellite operators like SES were able to deploy advanced compression technologies and new satellites to repack customers, keeping their services in the C-band.
However, with the Upper C-band process now underway, the satellite industry is unlikely to retain sufficient capacity to keep most services in this spectrum, prompting many media companies to prepare for a transition to Ku-band.
This shift represents a significant operational change for the broadcast industry. Moving large-scale distribution networks from one frequency band to another requires careful planning, detailed engineering, and close collaboration between satellite operators, broadcasters, and technology partners.
The objective is clear: ensure broadcasters can continue delivering premium content with substantially the same reliability, performance, and reach as C-band. At SES, we are developing solutions that maximise resilience and availability while minimising disruption to our customers’ heavily invested operational environments and avoiding unnecessary costs for them and their audiences.
Ku-band provides many of the benefits
of C-band in terms of cost, reach, and simplicity. However, Ku-band signals are more susceptible to attenuation during severe weather conditions, particularly in areas of the country that experience significant or intense precipitation. While these events are typically brief, they can cause video distortion or service outages. As such, the Ku-band solution that SES has proposed is designed with multiple layers of resiliency, enabling it to deliver a level
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