Company contribution
Company contribution
Nearly 40 years after SES launched its first communications satellite, Astra 1A, satellite remains deeply embedded in how the broadcast industry evolves. It enabled the first generation of pay-TV broadcasters. It carried the industry through analogue to digital, SD to HD to UHD. And it has played a part in broadcasting all ten of the most-watched sports events of all time. Satellite’ s contribution has never been about the technology in isolation – it has been about what that technology allowed the industry to do, and about connecting audiences with compelling content across genres, ages and geographies.
Satellite’ s ongoing role in the future of infrastructure-neutral media delivery.
Deepak Mathur, President of the Media
Vertical at SES, discusses satellite’ s evolving role in a changing media landscape and why the future of content delivery will depend on combining the right technologies for each audience and use case.
It is tempting today to view satellite as increasingly confined to niche or specialised applications as streaming and IP delivery gain ground worldwide. And on the terms that matter most to streaming, the argument is settled: on-demand access to any title, at any moment, on any device is a genuine advance in convenience, and one that a broadcast footprint was never designed to match. But that framing overlooks how much of the media ecosystem still runs through satellite – from content origination and aggregation, to contribution into non-satellite delivery platforms, to direct-to-consumer reach. SES alone carries more than 10,900 television channels and reaches over 2.3 billion viewers. Far from being a legacy technology, satellite fastest-growing media markets. continues to evolve alongside the wider media landscape, providing a scalable foundation for new delivery models and underpinning some of the world’ s
Unrivalled reach
One of satellite’ s enduring strengths is
its ability to overcome geography and infrastructure limitations. Terrestrial networks extend only as far as the economics and practicalities of physical build-out allow. Satellite provides broad coverage from a single point of transmission – across SES’ s network, reaching 99 % of the world’ s population.
That reach matters most in markets where satellite established DTH and it remains central to the viewing landscape. Decades of investment have created established video neighbourhoods that continue to anchor television distribution in developed and developing markets alike.
The 19.2 ° E orbital position is the anchor for German free-to-air DTH, reaching 43 % of all homes with more than 700 channels. In the UK, 28.2 ° E reaches 40 % of all‘ Classic TV’ homes and effectively 100 % of UK and Ireland DTH, cable and IPTV homes – with more than 95 % of DTH homes at that position watching in HD.
Streaming’ s growth, impressive as it is, has not eclipsed linear television. Across 12 European countries, 78 % of consumers say they still enjoy linear TV – a preference that has also driven the rise of FAST channels in recent years. And in some markets satellite persists simply because the alternatives are not universally available. In the UK, 3.6 % of homes cannot access 10 Mbps broadband, rising to 8 % in rural areas. With billions of people worldwide living beyond the footprint of terrestrial infrastructure, satellite’ s reach remains difficult to match.
From C-band to hybrid delivery
The evolution of satellite infrastructure itself shows why the legacy-versus-IP framing misses the point. The upper C-band clearing initiative in the US is prompting the industry to rethink how satellite capacity is used, and new approaches are emerging in response. SES’ s Ku + solution combines the strengths of different frequency bands, pairing higherpower Ku-band capacity with C-band uplink designed to improve performance in highrain areas with an advanced packet recovery solution. The result is distribution reliability comparable to C-band, achieved through more efficient use of available spectrum and infrastructure, and reinforced by terrestrial delivery for added resilience.
The wider lesson is that satellite is adapting to a changing regulatory and consumption environment rather than standing apart from it.
The satellite assist
Satellite is no longer only a means of delivering content directly to the end consumer. Increasingly, its value lies in how it works alongside other technologies across the wider broadcast ecosystem. The move towards infrastructure-neutral delivery reflects a broader shift away from single-method distribution models and towards selecting the most appropriate combination of technologies for a particular audience, geography or use case.
In practice, that means combining satellite with IP, fibre, OTT and cloud workflows where each offers the greatest value. A‘ best fit’ approach maximises reach while improving efficiency, adds redundancy and security to help mitigate piracy and protect signal integrity, and maintains the high-quality, lowlatency linear services that sport, live events, news and other high-engagement content demand.
Sport and live events
Sport and live events remain among the most popular forms of programming. Sports organisations, broadcasters and rights holders require highly reliable, high-quality services to meet demanding audience expectations, which makes resilient distribution infrastructure particularly important for the world’ s mostwatched sports properties.
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