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Satellite television is television delivered by way of communications
satellites, as compared to conventional terrestrial television and cable
television. In many areas of the world satellite television services supplement
older terrestrial signals, providing a wider range of channels and services,
including subscription-only services.
History
The first satellite television signal was relayed from Europe to the Telstar
satellite over North America in 1962. The first geosynchronous communication
satellite, Syncom 2 was launched in 1963. The world's first commercial
communication satellite, called Intelsat I (nicknamed Early Bird), was launched
into synchronous orbit on April 6, 1965. The first national network of satellite
television, called Orbita, was created in Soviet Union in 1967, and was based on
the principle of using the highly elliptical Molniya satellite for
re-broadcasting and delivering of TV signal to ground downlink stations. The
first domestic North American satellite to carry television was Canada’s
geostationary Anik 1, which was launched in 1972 . ATS-6, the world's first
experimental educational and Direct Broadcast Satellite, was launched in 1974.
The first Soviet geostationary satellite to carry Direct-To-Home television,
called Ekran, was launched in 1976.
Technology
Satellites used for television signals are generally in either highly elliptical
(with inclination of +/-63.4 degrees and orbital period of about 12 hours) or
geostationary orbit 37,000 km (22,300 miles) above the earth’s equator.
Satellite television, like other communications relayed by satellite, starts
with a transmitting antenna located at an uplink facility. Uplink satellite
dishes are very large, as much as 9 to 12 meters (30 to 40 feet) in diameter.
The increased diameter results in more accurate aiming and increased signal
strength at the satellite. The uplink dish is pointed toward a specific
satellite and the uplinked signals are transmitted within a specific frequency
range, so as to be received by one of the transponders tuned to that frequency
range aboard that satellite. The transponder 'retransmits' the signals back to
Earth but at a different frequency band (to avoid interference with the uplink
signal), typically in the C-band (4–8 GHz) or Ku-band (12–18 GHz) or both. The
leg of the signal path from the satellite to the receiving Earth station is
called the downlink.
A typical satellite has up to 32 transponders for Ku-band and up to 24 for a
C-band only satellite, or more for hybrid satellites. Typical transponders each
have a bandwidth between 27 MHz and 50 MHz. Each geo-stationary C-band satellite
needs to be spaced 2 degrees from the next satellite (to avoid interference).
For Ku the spacing can be 1 degree. This means that there is an upper limit of
360/2 = 180 geostationary C-band satellites and 360/1 = 360 geostationary
Ku-band satellites. C-band transmission is susceptible to terrestrial
interference while Ku-band transmission is affected by rain (as water is an
excellent absorber of microwaves).
The downlinked satellite signal, quite weak after traveling the great distance
(see inverse-square law), is collected by a parabolic receiving dish, which
reflects the weak signal to the dish’s focal point. Mounted on brackets at the
dish's focal point is a device called a feedhorn. This feedhorn is essentially
the flared front-end of a section of waveguide that gathers the signals at or
near the focal point and 'conducts' them to a probe or pickup connected to a
low-noise block downconverter or LNB. The LNB amplifies the relatively weak
signals, filters the block of frequencies in which the satellite TV signals are
transmitted, and converts the block of frequencies to a lower frequency range in
the L-band range. The evolution of LNBs was one of necessity and invention.
The original C-Band satellite TV systems used a Low Noise Amplifier connected to
the feedhorn at the focal point of the dish. The amplified signal was then fed
via very expensive 50 Ohm impedance coaxial cable to an indoor receiver or in
other designs fed to a downconverter (a mixer and a voltage tuned oscillator
with some filter circuitry) for downconversion to an intermediate frequency. The
channel selection was controlled, typically by a voltage tuned oscillator with
the tuning voltage being fed via a separate cable to the headend. But this
simple design evolved.
Designs for microstrip based converters for Amateur Radio frequencies were
adapted for the 4 GHz C-Band. Central to these designs was concept of block
downconversion of a range of frequencies to a lower, and technologically more
easily handled block of frequencies (intermediate frequency).
The advantages of using an LNB are that cheaper cable could be used to connect
the indoor receiver with the satellite TV dish and LNB, and that the technology
for handling the signal at L-Band and UHF was far cheaper than that for handling
the signal at C-Band frequencies. The shift to cheaper technology from the 50
Ohm impedance cable and N-Connectors of the early C-Band systems to the cheaper
75 Ohm technology and F-Connectors allowed the early satellite TV receivers to
use, what were in reality, modified UHF TV tuners which selected the satellite
television channel for down conversion to another lower intermediate frequency
centered on 70 MHz where it was demodulated. This shift allowed the satellite
television DTH industry to change from being a largely hobbyist one where
receivers were built in low numbers and complete systems were expensive (costing
thousands of Dollars) to a far more commercial one of mass production.
Direct broadcast satellite dishes are fitted with an LNBF, which integrates the
feedhorn with the LNB.
The satellite receiver demodulates and converts the signals to the desired form
(outputs for television, audio, data, etc.). Sometimes, the receiver includes
the capability to unscramble or decrypt; the receiver is then called an
Integrated receiver/decoder or IRD. The cable connecting the receiver to the
LNBF or LNB must be of the low loss type RG-6 or RG-10, etc. It cannot be
standard RG-59.
(A new form of satellite antenna, which does not use a directed parabolic dish
and can be used on a mobile platform such as a vehicle, was recently announced
by the University of Waterloo. )
Standards
Analog television distributed via satellite is usually sent scrambled or
unscrambled in NTSC, PAL, or SECAM television broadcast standards. The analog
signal is frequency modulated and is converted from an FM signal to what is
referred to as baseband. This baseband comprises the video signal and the audio
subcarrier(s). The audio subcarrier is further demodulated to provide a raw
audio signal.
If the signal is a digitized television signal or multiplex of signals, it is
typically QPSK.
In general, digital television, including that transmitted via satellites, are
generally based on open standards such as MPEG and DVB-S.
The conditional access encryption/scrambling methods include BISS, Conax,
Digicipher, Irdeto, Nagravision, PowerVu, Viaccess, Videocipher, and VideoGuard.
Many conditional access systems have been compromised.
Categories of usage
There are three primary types of satellite television usage: reception direct by
the viewer, reception by local television affiliates, or reception by headends
for distribution across terrestrial cable systems.
Direct to the viewer reception includes direct broadcast satellite or DBS and
television receive-only or TVRO, both used for homes and businesses including
hotels, etc.
Direct broadcast via satellite
Direct broadcast satellite, (DBS) also known as "Direct-To-Home" is a relatively
recent development in the world of television distribution. “Direct broadcast
satellite” can either refer to the communications satellites themselves that
deliver DBS service or the actual television service. DBS systems are commonly
referred to as "mini-dish" systems. DBS uses the upper portion of the Ku band.
Modified DBS systems can also run on C-band satellites and have been used by
some networks in the past to get around legislation by some countries against
reception of Ku-band transmissions.
Most of the DBS systems use the DVB-S standard for transmission. With Pay-TV
services, the datastream is encrypted and requires proprietary reception
equipment. While the underlying reception technology is similar, the Pay-TV
technology is proprietary, often consisting of a Conditional Access Module and
smart card.
This measure assures satellite television providers that only authorised, paying
subscribers have access to Pay TV content but at the same time can allow
free-to-air (FTA) channels to be viewed even by the people with standard
equipment (DBS receivers without the Conditional Access Modules) available in
the market.
Television receive-only
The term Television receive-only, or TVRO, arose during the early days of
satellite television reception to differentiate it from commercial satellite
television uplink and downlink operations (transmit and receive). This was
before there was a DTH satellite television broadcast industry. Satellite
television channels at that time were intended to be used by cable television
networks rather than received by home viewers. Satellite TV receiver systems
were largely, constructed by hobbyists and engineers. These TVRO system
operated, mainly, on the C band frequencies and the dishes required were large
typically over ten feet in diameter. Consequently TVRO is often referred to as
"big dish" satellite television.
TVRO systems are designed to receive analog and digital satellite feeds of both
television or audio from both C-band and Ku-band transponders on FSS-type
satellites. The higher frequency Ku-band systems tend to be Direct To Home
systems and can use a smaller dish antenna because of the higher power
transmissions and greater antenna gain.
TVRO systems tend to use larger rather than smaller satellite dish antennas,
since it is more likely that the owner of a TVRO system would have a C-band-only
setup rather than a Ku band-only setup. Additional receiver boxes allow for
different types of digital satellite signal reception, such as DVB/MPEG-2 and
4DTV.
The narrow beam width of a normal parabolic satellite antenna means it can only
receive signals from a single satellite at a time. Simulsat is a quasi-parabolic
satellite earthstation antenna that is capable of receiving satellite
transmissions from 35 or more C- and Ku-band satellites simultaneously.
Satellite television by continent and country
Africa
South African-based Multichoice's DStv is the main digital satellite television
provider in sub-Saharan Africa, broadcasting principally in English, but also in
Portuguese, German and Afrikaans. Canal Horizons, owned by France's Canal+, is
the main provider in French-speaking Africa. Another entrant into the satellite
television circuit in Africa is MyTvAfrica, a subsidiary of Dubai based Strong
Technologies. Satellite television has been far more successful in Africa than
cable, primarily because the infrastructure for cable television does not exist
and would be expensive to install since majority of Africans cannot afford paid
cable television. Furthermore, maintaining a cable network is expensive due to
the need to cover larger and more sparsely populated areas though there are some
terrestrial pay-TV and MMDS services.
GTV GTV, a British-based company, has become the second in sub-saharan Africa
providing digital satellite television with the focus first on Kenya Uganda,
Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Congo ETC.
HITV
HiTV a new satellite tv company in Nigeria on eutelsat w4.11900h27500.
The Americas
Canada
See also: Multichannel television in Canada
In Canada, the two legal DBS services available are Bell Canada’s ExpressVu and
StarChoice. The CRTC has refused to license American satellite services, but
nonetheless hundreds of thousands (up to a million by some estimates) of
Canadians access or have accessed American services — usually these services
have to be billed to an American address and are paid for in U.S. dollars.
Whether such activity is grey market or black market is the source of often
heated debate between those who would like greater choice and those who argue
that the protection of Canadian firms and Canadian culture is more important.
In October 2004, Quebec judge Danièle C?té ruled Canada's Radiocommunication Act
to be in direct violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms,
insofar as it bans reception of unlicensed foreign television services. The
judgment gave the federal government a one-year deadline to remedy this breach
of the Constitution. However, this contradicts prior Supreme Court of Canada
decisions and, at last word in late 2004, was expected to be appealed.
In addition, Canadian satellite providers continue to be plagued by the
unquestionably black market devices which "pirate" or "steal" their signals as
well as by a number of otherwise completely lawful devices which can be
reprogrammed to receive pirate TV.
One cable TV CEO (Karl Péladeau of Québecor, which owns Vidéotron) is on public
record as demanding conditions be placed on the CRTC license issued to Bell
ExpressVu, due to BEV’s reputation for vastly inferior security compared to its
cable rivals and Shaw Cable–owned StarChoice.
Although there are no official statistics, the use of American satellite
services in Canada appears to be declining as of 2004.
Some would claim that this is probably due to a combination of increasingly
aggressive police enforcement and an unfavourable exchange rate between the
Canadian and U.S. currencies. As the U.S. dollar has been declining as of 2005
versus other international currencies, the decline in DirecTV viewership in
Canada may well be related not to a cost difference as much as to the series of
smart card swaps which have rendered the first three generations of DirecTV
access cards (F, H and HU) all obsolete.
Latin America
Latin America’s main satellite system are SKY Latin America, which has
approximately 1.4 million subscribers in each of Brazil and Mexico and DirecTV
Latin America, which provides service to the rest of the Americas, with a total
of approximately 1.3 million subscribers. Pay-TV is not popular among Latin
American because fees are expensive in PPP terms.
The service offered in Brazil includes Digital TV with full Dolby Digital
surround support, mts and multiple subtitle options, a first for the Brazilian
market. A recent update to Sky's services in Brazil is Sky+ which allows the
customer to record a program while watching another one, this service is however
very expensive resulting in very few clients subscribing to this add-on.
United States
Currently, there are two primary satellite television services available to
United States consumers: Dish Network and DirecTV.
Over the past three decades, various U.S. satellite services have come and gone
or combined to form the current primary services. In 1975 RCA created Satcom 1,
the first satellite built especially for use by the then three national
television networks (CBS, NBC, and ABC). Later that same year, HBO leased a
transponder on Satcom 1 and began transmission of television programs via
satellite to cable systems. Owners of cable systems paid $10,000 to install
3-meter dishes to receive TV signal in C-band. In 1976 Taylor Howard built an
amateur system, which consisted of a converted military surplus radar dish and a
satellite receiver designed and built by Howard, for home satellite reception.
Taylor's system could be used for receiving TV programs both from American and
Soviet communication satellites. In 1977 Pat Robertson launched the first
satellite-delivered basic cable service called the CBN Cable Network.
USSB was a direct-to-home service founded in 1981. In the early 1990's they
partnered with Hughes and continued operation until purchased in 1998 by
DirecTV.
In 1991 Primestar launched as the first North American DBS service. Hughes’s
DirecTV, the first national high-powered upper Ku-band DBS system, went online
in 1994. The DirecTV system became the new delivery vehicle for USSB. News
Corporation currently holds a 38% stake, which it is in the process of selling
to Liberty Media. In 1996, EchoStar’s Dish Network went online in the United
States and has gone on to similar success as DirecTV’s primary competitor. The
AlphaStar service launched in 1996 and went into bankruptcy in 1997. Dominion
Video Satellite Inc's Sky Angel also went online in the United States in 1996
with its DBS service geared toward the faith and family market. Sky Angel uses
Echostar receivers. Primestar sold its assets to Hughes in 1999 and switched
off.
In 2004, Cablevision’s Voom service went online, specifically catering to the
emerging market of HDTV owners and aficionados, but folded in April 2005. The
service’s “exclusive” high-definition channels are currently being migrated to
the Dish Network system. Commercial DBS services are the primary competition to
cable television service, although the two types of service have significantly
different regulatory requirements (for example, cable television has public
access requirements, and the two types of distribution have different
regulations regarding carriage of local stations).
The majority of ethnic-language broadcasts in North America are carried on Ku
band free-to-air. The largest concentration of ethnic programming is on Galaxy
25 at 97° W. Pittsburgh International Telecommunications and GlobeCast World TV
offers a mix of free and pay-TV ethnic channels in the internationally-standard
DVB-S format, as do others. Home2US Communications Inc. also offers several
ethnic channels on AMC-4 at 101° W, as well as other free and pay-TV channels.
Several U.S.-English language network affiliates (representing CBS, NBC, ABC,
PBS, FOX, the CW (formerly the WB and UPN), ION Network and MyNetworkTV) are
available as free-to-air broadcasts, as are the three U.S.-Spanish language
networks (Univisión, Telefutura and Telemundo). The number of free-to-air
specialty channels is otherwise rather limited. Specific FTA offerings tend to
appear and disappear rather often and typically with little or no notice,
although sites such as LyngSat do track the changing availability of both free
and pay channels worldwide.
Asia
Bangladesh
Banglabesh Satellite television are , 1)Bangla Vision 2) NTV 3)RTV 4)ATN Bangla
5)Channel I 6) Channel 1 7)Boishaki TV 8) ETV 9) DESH TV 10)Digonto 11)Islamic
TV 12)STVUS
India
India has the indigenously built INSAT series satellites from Indian Space
Research Organisation (ISRO) along with some private operators . INSAT 4A,
INSAT-2E, INSAT-3C and INSAT-3E carry multiple channels for Indian television
viewers.1. Netherlands-based SES Global-owned NSS 6, Thaicom-2 and Telstar 10
are the other major private satellites over India. Notable service providers
offering a bouquet of multiple channels are state-owned Doordarshan, News
Corporation owned STAR TV and Sony owned Sony Entertainment Television.
DD Direct Plus, DishTV and Tata Sky are the three major commercial service
providers of Satellite Television in India. Sun Tv has also entered into the
Commercial service provider of Satellite TV in India,
Malaysia
Malaysia's sole satellite television operator, Measat Broadcast Network Systems
(a subsidiary of Astro All Asia Networks plc) launched Astro in 1996. It
currently holds exclusive rights from the Malaysian government to offer
satellite television broadcasting services in the country through the year 2017.
Japan
The medium-scale Broadcasting Satellite for Experimental Purposes (BSE) was
planned by Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MOPT) and developed by the
National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) since 1974. After that, the
first Japanese experimental broadcasting satellite, called BSE or Yuri, was
launched in 1978. NHK started experimental broadcasting of TV program using
BS-2a satellite on May, 1984.
The satellite BS-2a was launched in preparation for the start of full scale
2-channel broadcasts. Broadcasting Satellite BS-2a was the first national DBS
(direct broadcasting satellite), transmitting signals directly into the home of
TV viewers. Attitude control of the satellite was conducted using the 3 axial
method (zero momentum), and design life was 5 years. The TV transponder units
are designed to sufficiently amplify transmitted signals to enable reception by
small, 40 or 60 cm home-use parabolic antennas. The satellite was equipped with
3 TV transponders (including reserve units). However, one transponder
malfunctioned 2 months after launch (March 23, 1984) and a second transponder
malfunctioned 3 months after launch (May 3, 1984). So, the scheduled satellite
broadcasting had to be hastily adjusted to test broadcasting on a single
channel.
Later, NHK started regular service (NTSC) and experimental HDTV broadcasting
using BS-2b on June, 1989. Some Japanese producers of home electronic consumer
devices began to deliver TVsets, VCRs and even home acoustic systems equipped by
built-in satellite tuners or receivers. Such electronic goods had a specific BS
logo.
On April, 1991, Japanese company JSB started pay TV service while BS-3
communication satellite was in use. In 1996 total number of households that
receive satellite broadcasting exceeded 10 million.
The modern two satellite systems in use in Japan are BSAT and JCSAT; the modern
WOWOW Broadcasting Satellite digital service uses BSAT satellites, while other
system of digital TV broadcasting SKY PerfecTV! uses JCSAT satellites.
Pakistan
Most Pakistani Channels use uplink services in Dubai Media City. Satellite TV in
Pakistan is mainly provided through cable operators using decoders and set top
boxes. Satellite channels include PTV world, HUM TV a channel of Eye TV, Geo TV,
Indus Network and ARY network among others are SHEKHANI TV, AAJand The ALTAF
MUSIC etc.
Europe
Continental Western Europe
In Europe, DBS satellite services are found mainly on Astra satellites and
Hotbird (operated by Eutelsat.) BSkyB (known as Sky) serves the UK. Sky Italia,
Canal Digitaal and UPC being the main providers in Italy, the Netherlands and
Central Europe.
The overall market share of DBS satellite services in 2004 was 21.4% of all TV
homes, however this highly varies from country to country. For example, in
Germany, with many free-to-air TV-stations, DBS market share is almost 40%, and
in Belgium and the Netherlands, it’s only about 7%, due to the widespread cable
networks with exclusive content.
Russian Federation
The first Soviet communication satellite, called Molniya, was launched in 1965.
By November, 1967 the national system of satellite television, called Orbita was
deployed. The system consisted of 3 highly elliptical Molniya satellites,
Moscow-based ground uplink facilities and about 20 downlink stations, located in
cities and towns of remote regions of Siberia and Far East. Each station had a
12-meter receiving parabolic antenna and transmitters for re-broadcasting TV
signal to local householders.
However, a large part of Soviet central regions were still not covered by
transponders of Molniya satellites. By 1976 Soviet engineers developed a
relatively simple and inexpensive system of satellite television (especially for
Central and Northern Siberia). It included geostationary satellites called Ekran
equipped with powerful 300 W UHF transponders, a broadcasting uplink station and
various simple receiving stations located in various towns and villages of
Siberian region. The typical receiving station, also called Ekran, represented
itself as a home-use analog satellite receiver equipped with simple Yagi-Uda
antenna. Later, Ekran satellites were replaced by more advanced Ekran-M series
satellites.
In 1979 Soviet engineers developed Moskva (or Moscow) system of broadcasting and
delivering of TV signal via satellites. New type of geostationary communication
satellites, called Gorizont, were launched. They were equipped by powerful
onboard transponders, so the size of receiving parabolic antennas of downlink
stations was reduced to 4 and 2.5 meters (in comparison of early 12- meter
dishes of standard orbital downlink stations).
By 1989 an improved version of Moskva system of satellite television has been
called Moskva Global'naya (or Moscow Global). The system included a few
geostationary Gorizont and Express type of communication satellites. TV signal
from Moscow Global’s satellites could be received in any country of planet
except Canada and North-West of the USA.
Modern Russian satellite broadcasting services based on powerful geostationary
buses such as Gals, Express, Yamal and Eutelsat which provide a large quantity
of free-to-air television channels to millions of householders. Pay-TV is
growing in popularity amongst Russian TV viewers. The NTV Russia news company,
owned by Gazprom, broadcasts the NTV Plus package to 560,000 households,
reaching over 1.5 million viewers.
United Kingdom and Ireland
The first commercial DBS service in the United Kingdom, Sky Television, was
launched in 1989 and used the newly launched ASTRA satellite, providing 4
analogue TV channels. The channels and subsequent VideoCrypt video encryption
system used the existing PAL broadcast standard. This gave Sky a distinct
advantage over the winner of the UK state DBS licence, BSB.
In the following year, after many delays, BSB was launched, broadcasting five
channels in D-MAC format and using the EuroCypher video encryption system which
was based heavily on the General Instruments VideoCipher system used in the USA.
While the BSB system was technologically more advanced than the PAL system and
one of the main selling points of the BSB offering was the Squarial, an
expensive flat plate antenna and LNB. Sky's system used conventional and cheap
dish and LNB technology.
The competition between the two companies was fierce and bidding wars over the
UK rights to movies. Sky kept costs to a bare minimum, operating from an
industrial park in Isleworth just outside of London. BSB had expensive offices
in London (Marco Polo House). The two services subsequently merged to form
British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) though the new BSkyB was really Sky. The
technologically more advanced BSB D-MAC/EuroCypher system was gradually replaced
with Sky's VideoCrypt video encryption system.
In 1994 17% of the group was floated on the London Stock Exchange (with ADRs
listed on the New York Stock Exchange), and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation
owns a 35% stake.
By 1999, following the launch of several more satellites (at 19.2°E by SES
Astra, the number of channels had increased to around 60 and BSkyB launched the
first subscription-based digital television platform in the UK, offering a range
of 300 channels broadcast from the Astra satellites at 28.2°E under the brand
name Sky Digital. BSkyB’s analogue service has now been discontinued, with all
customers having been migrated to Sky Digital.
Nordic countries
The first satellite service specifically set to the Nordic region was TV3 which
launched in 1987. With the launch of Astra 1A, getting the TV3 channel got
easier. The first Nordic-specific satellite, Tele-X, was launched in 1989. The
services directed at Scandinavia were then scattered among several satellites.
In 1993, the former BSB satellites were bought by a Swedish and a Norwegian
company, respectively. These two satellites were renamed Thor 1 and Sirius 1,
moved to new positions and started broadcasting services intended for people in
the Nordic region. With the launch of additional Thor and Sirius satellites
later in the 1990s, Astra and other satellites were abandoned by the Nordic
services with almost all Nordic satellite television migrating to the Sirius and
Thor satellites.
Initially the basic channels were free-to-air. This caused several rights
problems since viewers throughout Europe were able to see very much acquired
English language programming as well as sports for free on the Nordic channels,
although the channels only held broadcasting rights for specific countries. One
way of avoiding that was to switch from PAL to the D2MAC standard, hardly used
anywhere outside the Nordic region. An unencrypted channel could still be seen
in all the Nordic satellite homes, so eventually all channels went encrypted
(several of them only being available in one country).
There are two competing satellite services: Canal Digital (Norwegian Telenor)
and Viasat (Kinnevik). Canal Digital launched in 1997 and was digital from the
start, broadcasting from Thor. Kinnevik had been operating an analogue
subscription service since the late 1980s, but waited until the year 2000 before
launching a digital service. All analogue services from Thor and Sirius will
have ceased in 2006, when the three remaining Danish channels go digital-only.
The competition between Viasat and Canal Digital has caused some homes in
Scandinavia to have to buy two set-top boxes and have two subscriptions to get
the full range of channels. Viasat doesn't provide their own channels (TV3,
TV3+, ZTV, TV1000 and the Viasat-branded channels) on the Canal Digital
platform. Canal Digital does however have exclusive distribution of channels
from SBS Broadcasting, Discovery, TV2 Denmark and Eurosport; for several years
the Swedish SVT and TV4 channels were also exclusive to Canal Digital.
Middle East & North Africa
The Middle East has a high penetration of homes receiving TV channels via DTH
satellite. One of the pioneers of free-to-air digital satellite television is
considered to be MBC, which began broadcasting in c band through Arabsat and is
the first network in the world to offer a free-to-air Western based English
language movie channel to the Middle East audience via its spinoff channel MBC
2. Its direct rival is considered to be Dubai, UAE based One TV, earlier called
Channel 33, which was the first channel in the Middle East to provide English
language general entertainment programming for the expatriate community.
The first digital DTH pay-TV network to provide Western Entertainment was Orbit
Satellite Television and Radio Network broadcasting via Arabsat (C band), later
on Showtime Arabia a joint venture between Viacom (21% stake) and KIPCO (79%
stake) started broadcasting, via PanAmSat (C band), but later switched over to
Nilesat (KU band). Arab Radio & Television (ART) now known as Arab Digital
Distribution although a late comer, gained ground by broadcasting exclusive
sports events. Most of the popular channels are transmitting from these
satellites and orbital positions: Arabsat at 26°E, AsiaSat at 100.5°E and
105.5°E, Eutelsat Hot Bird at 13°E, Nilesat at 7°W, and PanAmSat at 68.5°E.
In Israel, Satellite TV services were introduced by YES! company, using Israeli
based Amos (satellite).
Australia
Satellite television in Australia has proven to be a far more feasible option
than cable television, due to the vast distances between population centres,
although this explanation seems to contradict the rationale behind the
relatively high cable television penetration rate in Canada, a country with an
even larger distance between population centres and lower population density
than Australia. The first service to come online in Australia was Galaxy, which
was later taken over by Cable Television giant Foxtel, which now operates both
cable and satellite services to all state capital cities (except Darwin and
Hobart) and the whole of Western Australia. Its main metropolitan rival was
Optus Vision, while rural areas are served by Austar, both of which just
rebroadcast Foxtel as of 2005. In 2006 SelecTV began operating, aiming at
providing comparatively low cost packages and catering to specialised market
segments.
New Zealand
In New Zealand, SKY Network Television offers multichannel digital satellite TV,
in addition to its non-digital terrestrial UHF service. The newly released
Freeview service is also available on the Optus D1 satellite, with further plans
to release a digital terrestrial service in March of 2008. The current FTA
service broadcasts all of New Zealand's national free-to-air services with the
exception of the Prime channel which is owned by SKY TV.
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