It has not been the best of week for smaller satellite operators. Two are suffering problems with their satellites. Israel’s Spacecom has discovered that its Amos 5i (a second-hand satellite bought from AsiaSat at the end of last year) doesn’t have the fuel on board that it expected. The AsiaSat craft was designed to last […]

Go with the flow or fight your way upstream against the tide? It’s a question that challenges us all at various times, and one that is always relevant in digital media. In the September 2010 issue of Euromedia we focus on an area where maximising the flow is the aim – multiple screens means multiple […]

At this week’s EuroConsult satellite business week in Paris, one group of delegates will be smiling. It seems the all-important satellite insurance industry is looking likely to have a record year for profitability.  Insurance giant Willis Inspace on September 3 reported that insurance premiums for the year are likely to approach $600m, and while there’s […]

Net Neutrality is, ironically, a matter on which nearly no one is neutral. When the Web was young the idea of equal access for all content and service providers was logical and easily accommodated. Then came video, which was magnitudes more bandwidth hungry than what had gone before. But there was still no question of […]

A few weeks ago Romain Bausch, the CEO of satellite operator SES, spoke ambitiously of further expansion for SES. He specifically mentioned two possible target operators: Intelsat, a similarly huge supplier of satellite capacity and services, and Telesat of Canada. Telesat is part-owned by Canadian pension interests and the investors behind Space Systems Loral.  Evidently […]

The rise and rise of Avatar as far as the international box-office was concerned is all so long ago. That Avatar – and more recent Hollywood events – have raised the profile for 3D is undoubted. But there have also been critical 3D flops (but sometimes financial hits) such as Clash of the Titans, Cats […]

There is much talk these days of ‘The Cloud’ and its connection to consumer devices, specifically Connected TVs. The case against STBs is pretty straightforward; if you can have effective content management (and storage) in the cloud, if consumer devices can be connected to commoditized high speed broadband, and if content providers (or dedicated third […]

I wonder if Rupert Murdoch allows himself an ironic chuckle that while the UK government (in common with virtually all its counterparts) is preparing legislation to punish consumers and distributors for stealing content rights, its regulator is forcing Sky to handover those rights (or the product of them) for a discounted price. I imagine Murdoch […]

Management gurus and journalists have a habit of ascribing human characteristics to corporations: ‘the sleeping giant,’ ‘the agile start up,’ ‘the strong brand.’ But you hardly ever hear companies described as ‘nerveless,’ or ‘calm’ or ‘wise’. The reason is that they are none of the above and particularly not in the hot house of the […]