SES Americom-New Skies Picks Up MTVN Six-Pack
Satellite Distributor Now Offers 67 Networks
by George Winslow -- Multichannel News, 4/29/2009 2:19:34 PM
LAS VEGAS -- SES Americom-New Skies has added six HD channels from MTV Networks to its HD-Prime distribution platform, the company said.
That boosts the total number of channels it handles to 67, more than any other provider, according to senior vice president of media services Bryan McGuirk. Worldwide, there are 136 HD channels on parent company SES S.A.'s platforms, McGuirk said.
The amount of channels handled by the company "has almost doubled in the last year," McGuirk said during an interview at the company's booth at the National Association of Broadcasters convention here. "HD has now officially gone from being a niche offering at the media companies to something that is mainstream for every channel. All those channels that weren't in HD are now going HD."
The six MTV channels -- Nickelodeon HD, MTV HD, VH1 HD, Comedy Central HD, Spike TV HD and CMT HD -- will all be distributed in MPEG-4, continuing programmers' industry-wide move to that compression standard.
"For MPEG-4, the last mile has a ways to go," McGuirk explained, referring to the large number of MPEG-2 set-tops that cable operators would need to replace before they begin to take advantage of MPEG-4's bandwidth savings. "But on the wholesale side, MPEG-4 is now mainstream."
To conserve capacity for the rapidly growing demand for HD channels, SES was an early adopter of MPEG-4 and was the first to put DVB-S2 satellite modulation in its birds, McGuirk said.
"There wouldn't be enough capacity to meet demand if we hadn't done that," he said.
Even with better compression, satellite operator has had to aggressively expand its satellite fleet and capacity. "We are really the only satellite player that has added HD capacity," McGuirk said. "Today, we have five satellites [for the cable industry] and we grew that from nothing. No one else has done that in the last 15 years."
That expansion will continue in upcoming years, driven initially by the launch of more HD channels and several years down the road by the development of more advanced services, such as high-definition 3-D programming and such higher-resolution formats as 1080p at 60 frames per second.
"We have a number of birds in the factory," said McGuirk, who said SES Americom must play several years ahead to make certain it has the capacity to meet industry trends.
"We are already had some in-depth discussions with leading media players about trying to implement 1080p 60," he added, noting that SES has been involved in several experiments with delivering 3-D content.
At NAB, SES Americom-New Skies also announced several other deals. These include: a five-year distribution and contribution deal for the delivery of CNN to and from Europe and the Middle East; the renewal of a deal for 160 MHz of satellite capacity with DRS Technologies; and a multi-year deal to distribute THIS TV, a partnership between Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Weigel Broadcasting.
The 24-hour digital multicast channel, which uses programming from the MGM library and originates from Weigel's WCIU-TV in Chicago, has been cleared by more than 70 stations around the country and expects to reach more than 70% of U.S. homes by the end of the year.MTVN Launches Six HD Channels With SES
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