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Sat-ND, 4.9.96

Sat-ND 96-09-04 - Satellite and Erotica News

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=========================================================

Teracom's Birthday surprise
No, it's not the same old story, Rendez-Vous Television said today in a
press release, claiming they did pay the rent for their transponder on
EUTELSAT II-F3 (16°E.) Notwithstanding, the station disappeared from 10.987
GHz h last Sunday night exactly one year after its launch.
Rendez-Vous claims in its statement it was switched off by the Swedish
telecommunications company Teracom which decided not to renew the uplink
contract. Despite the programming originating from France, the channel so
far was uplinked from Stockholm. Rendez-Vous management hadn't been
previously informed about the decision to discontinue the arrangement.
Tonight, a message was to be broadcast using a mobile uplink unit to inform
the audience about the technical situation. This obviously means that
Rendez-Vous still has its time-slot (0000 through 0500 GMT.) 
The company said it will move its uplink to a location in a different
European country soon: "We will keep this interruption as short as possible
-- 4 or 5 days." Customers will receive a extension of their subscriptions
by one month to compensate for the interruption.

Russia launches military satellite
Russia today has launched a military satellite from the Ukrainian
cosmodrome in Baikonur. The KOSMOS satellite was put into orbit by a
Zenit-2 medium-class carrier rocket, reported news agency Itar-Tass. The
spacecraft will be used by the Russian Defence Ministry.

EchoStar swallows Direct Broadcast Satellite Corp.
EchoStar Communcations has received final approval from the USA's Federal
Communications Commission to merge one of its units with the privately-held
Direct Broadcast Satellite Corp. EchoStar already owns about 40 percent of
the company. Under the take-over agreement, other shareholders would
receive either US$7.99 or 0.67 EchoStar shares per Direct Broadcasting
share. The merger is now expected to be completed during the next few
weeks.
Direct Broadcast is involved in the construction of ECHOSTAR III, a direct
broadcast satellite based on Lockheed Martin's AX2100 platform. Slated to
be launched in autumn next year, it may also deliver Internet services.


RupertWatch
By Dr Sarmaz <DrSarmaz@aol.com>*

Murdoch's news channel introduces schedule
Rupert Murdoch's Fox News channel has introduced its schedule. It will
consist of 16 hours of live programming per day, the remainder being filled
with reruns and live updates. There will be two ten-minute news bulletins
every hour, the other 20 minutes of each half hour consist of the usual
special topics such as business or health. In the evening, the channel
switches to a different format. One-hour shows such as in-depth reports or
interviews will be broadcast, still interrupted with news updates every
half hour.
Following CNN and MSNBC, Fox News will be the third all-news channel in the
USA when it signs on October 7. Ten million cable households in the US will
be able to watch the channel initially. Fox News chairman Roger Ailes, a
well-known conservative TV professional, said he would "certainly envision
this being No. 1 someday." 
MSNBC, the cable TV network that is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC,
has meanwhile announced it would launch a European service late next year.
While recognising that the possibilities of being distributed the normal
(analogue) way are tight, Roger Ogden, president and managing director of
NBC Europe, said that digital TV was "the key to the launch. We'd like to
have at least four or five million homes at launch."

Labour denies plans for Murdoch tax
It's not a bad idea after all. Today, Britain's Financial Times reported
that the opposition Labour Party was considering a special tax for
commercial broadcasters of up to 14 percent of their revenue.
Now for the bad news: Labour has dismissed the report. "We don't know where
the Financial Times got this story from," said a Labour spokesman. BSkyB
shares, which had opened significantly lower today, soon began to climb
again after the Labour statement.
There would be a reason for the tax, of course. Many of the regional
commercial broadcasters have to pay annual fees as result of their license
bids. The also have to hand over a certain part of their revenue to the
Treasury, with the percentage ranging from zero to eleven percent.
BSkyB, which can bee subscribed to nation-wide, pays nothing (probably
because it never received a license by the country's broadcasting
authority.) Taxing Mr Murdoch's pay TV would raise about 400 million pounds
additionally. While the regional broadcasters would pay 237 million pounds,
BSkyB would have to contribute 134 million pounds. Despite its record
pre-tax profit of 257 million pounds reported last month, BSkyB reportedly
still doesn't pay corporation tax because of their losses during the
start-up phase of the venture.

Murdoch, Softbank to utilise JCSAT-3
Mr Murdoch's News Corp has agreed with Japan's Softbank Corp to use the
JCSAT-3 (128°E) satellite to broadcast their multi-channel digital
satellite TV package to be launched in 1997. Initially, it will consist of
just 12 channels still to be licensed by the Japanese government. Later,
their joint venture Japan Sky Broadcast (JSkyB) hopes to boost the number
of channels to 500.

--
* No, the address isn't "misanthropist.kmb.fo.bof.@ta". You will reach
somebody else there.


A day in Cyberspace
By Grandpa Zheng

The National Lottery
Britains National Lottery went online today. Lord Parkinson, chairman of
Internet presence provider Planet Online, claimed during the launch
ceremony that "the Internet is a massive step towards the world after
paper. Increasingly we will be getting rid of the massive volumes of paper
that cause millions of trees to be cut down every year." Good for the
trees, but they already said that when personal computers became popular.
Actually, since then more paper is used in offices than ever before.
http://www.national-lottery.co.uk/

Bowie telling lies on the Web
David Bowie will release his next single "Telling Lies" exclusively on the
Internet beginning Wednesday, September 11 at 10 PM (Eastern). Yes, it's
not available in the shops, and reportedly it won't even be played on the
radio. You can only get it from the official David Bowie site on the
Internet.
Bowie's record company Virgin said it was the first time a major artist has
released a full song on the Internet. Not exactly, as there are even three
different versions of the song freely available. Listen to it via
Progressive Networks' live streaming RealAudio, Macromedia's Shockwave, or
download it as a CD quality stereo file. I'd prefer the last one.
http://www.davidbowie.com/

Lesbigay Internet
Gays and Lesbians are becoming an important target of advertisers. A new
report shows advertising revenues have risen in the U.S. lesbigay press
three times faster than in mainstream publications. The same holds true for
Europe where there's a strong trend towards advertising in homosexual
magazines. And according to June 1996 study of XY Magazine, a young gay
men's monthly in the US, 52 percent of its readers are on-line. You
probably can't claim that for any other social group in the world.
So, guess what. As from today, Gays and Lesbians have their first dedicated
on-line service called PlanetOut, available world-wide via the World Wide
Web, AOL, or MSN. "Whether you live in rural Iowa, a Norwegian fjord, or
the Australian outback, you can become connected, stay informed, get
involved, and have your say. You can participate in the action, rather than
simply watch it on TV.  PlanetOut represents a new way to live for lesbian
and gay people," said Tom Rielly, PlanetOut's founder and president.
I checked just the Internet portion which seems to be a very professional
site, although there seem to be some flaws even when accessing it with
Netscape Navigator 3.0. Never mind, just check it out. There's a lot to
discover, and at least there's an international approach to the whole
thing.
http://www.planetout.com/


Re: Sat-ND, 3.9.96
After the comment about the simple domain-name www.sg you may tell Grandpa
Zheng about http://yes.no/ or http://sci.fi/.
A domain, but no webserver has dr.no and na.no.
Robert Lundemo <http://www.unik.no/~robert/>

I'm sure Grandpa Zheng will try these as soon as he's got hold of an
Internet access. -- Ed.

=========================================================
Copyright 1996 by Peter C. Klanowski, pck@LyNet.De. All rights reserved.

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