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Sat-ND, 20.9.96

Sat-ND 96-09-20 - Satellite and Media News

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"(c) Copyright 1996 by Sat-ND, http://www.sat-net.com/pck/"
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Sat-ND to
Peter C. Klanowski, Fax +49-451-5820055, pck@LyNet.De

This issue is sponsored by TELE-satellite, Europe's Satellite Magazine 
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=========================================================


Hughes swallows PanAmSat
Hughes Electronics Corp. will buy the satellite operator PanAmSat Corp. for
US$3-billion. The deal that will create the World's second-largest
satellite network was officially announced by both companies today.
As expected (Sat-ND, 19.9.96,) Hughes Communications Galaxy (HCG) and
PanAmSat will together form a new public company under the name of
PanAmSat. Current PanAmSat stockholders will receive $1.5 billion in cash
and 28.5 percent of the new company while Hughes Electronics initially owns
71.5 percent.
Mexico's Grupo Televisa, one of the major PanAmSat shareholders, will buy
back PanAmSat's options to obtain equity interests in Spanish-speaking
direct-to-home ventures in the Americas and Spain.
Hughes, a subsidiary General Motors Corp., is the world's largest
manufacturer of satellites, serving more than 50 percent of the market.
Panamsat, the world's largest private satellite company, was put up for
sale in April by the heirs of its founder Réné Anselmo, following pressure
from the company's other main shareholder, Grupo Televisa SA, which is
urgent need for some cash. They will get it, probably US$600 million plus
an 8.5 percent equity interest in the new company.
"By combining Hughes' and PanAmSat's strengths in domestic and global
satellite communications, we will be bringing a new level of service to our
customers throughout the world," said C. Michael Armstrong, chairman and
chief executive officer of Hughes Electronics.
"The strategic combination creates the premier commercial provider of
global satellite-based communications services," said Frederick A. Landman,
current president and chief executive officer of PanAmSat. He will also be
president and chief executive officer of the new company.
http://www.hughes.com/ (Hughes Electronics)
http://www.panamsat.com/ (PanAmSat)
http://www.televisa.com/, http://www.televisa.com.mx/ (Grupo Televisa)

CBS scraps US programming
Canadian TV viewers will be put on a special diet from September 1998. The
country's public broadcaster CBC has announced to eliminate US soap operas
and other regular US programming from the daytime schedule of its
English-language network. Starting this autumn, US content will also be
banned from the prime-time slot between 7 and 11 p.m.
In a statement, CBC said it aimed at "making CBC television a service that
every Canadian will recognise as a distinctly Canadian service." More than
three quarters of Canadian viewers prefer an "all-Canadian" CBC, a recent
survey said.
This does by no means keep US content from Canadian tubes. Most of the
country's population lives close to the border to the USA, so many of them
may even receive US television with an ordinary antenna. If not, there's
still satellite and cable. 
Owing to a reduction of government funding, CBC will also cut back other
programming including sports coverage. Within two years, 2,500 of the 7,700
employees will be laid off.
http://www.cbc.ca/

Telepiù boosts sports output
Italian pay-TV service Telepiu has recently announced the autumn schedule
for its sport service called Tele+2. The specialised sports channel will
offer its subscribers many live events with the emphasis being on football
(soccer). Football fans will be able to watch live Serie A and Serie B
football games every Saturday and Sunday, as well as English Premier
League, Bundesliga, Spanish League, Argentinian, Brazilian and U.S.
football. Tele+2 will also transmit 50 qualification matches for the World
Cup as well as the final of the Intercontinental cup between Juventus and
River Plate. Basketball is also represented in the new schedule, with
Italian league games (every Sunday) and NBA league. Tele+2 also has
exclusive rights for all European basketball cups and will show more than
100 matches. Volleyball will also have it's place with confirmed
transmissions of Italian league matches (Sunday afternoon) and European
cups. No changes on the tennis front, with Tele+2 broadcasting, as before,
3 of the top 4 Grand slam tournaments. Finally, the channel will continue
showing all Mike Tyson's box matches, as well as all World title fights
involving Italians. Tele+2 is transmitted terrestrially in Italy and via
satellite as part of Telepiu's digital package DSTV on EUTELSAT 13 degrees
East.
(Branislav Pekic)
http://www.telepiu.it/, http://www.dstv.it/ (?)


Rupert Watch
By Dr Sarmaz <DrSarmaz@aol.com>

Time Warner favours Bill instead of Rupert
According to USA Today, Time Warner has selected the joint venture of NBC
and Microsoft, MSNBC, to be carried on most of the company's cable system
which is the second largest in the USA.
As a consequence of the merger with CNN's parent company Turner
Broadcasting System Inc., Time Warner has to offer its subscribers a
second, non-CNN news channel under an agreement with the Federal Trade
Commission. Mr Murdoch's hopes to reach an additional 11.7 million cable
households in the USA with his Fox News Channel may be shattered, as Time
Warner instead chose to put MSNBC in an additional 5.8 million homes by
mid-1999, up from 3 million homes today, the newspaper reported.
http://www.msnbc.com/


Re: Sat-ND, 19.9.96 [Live-TV over the Internet]
This project has been going on for some time now in Finland:
http://www.ml.tele.fi/
With the amount of hype that goes on in the Internet I think we should now
call it the hypernet, (sounds more futuristic). 
(Leslie Penner)

Re: Sat-ND, 19.9.96 [CIA hack]
Jojo from Sweden sent me a picture of the refurbished CIA Web Site. Cheers!
He also pointed out that CNN's web site was broadly covering the issue, and
this is the place to go:
http://cnn.com/TECH/9609/20/cia.hackers/index.html
It seems the hackers who intruded the CIA site came from Sweden. Well,
Jojo, what's your alibi then?

Re: Sat-ND, 19.9.96 [Scandinavian channels]
Add to this Nickelodeon Denmark/Norway (I think it's the Swedish version
with Danish/Norwegian subtitling, though Viasat promises that Danish and
Norwegian language will be added in the spring of '97) on TV-SAT 2, 11.977
GHz, thus sharing transponder with 3+ (0700-1300). Sci-Fi will broadcast
from 0900 to 0500 and VH-1 from 0500 to 2400. 
And to Danish readers: the subscription fee for CTV will be 75dkr, but if
you subscribe sooner than later you'll get it for the current 55dkr - at
least so I'm told. However the new channels will be free to Viasat
card-holders (not the DR2-version) until the end of '96. Encryption will be
Eurocrypt M. 
(Mogens Poulsen)
http://www.viasat.dk/

Once again: Thanks very much to everybody who contributed to this issue.
Keep it coming!


Zeroes and Ones 
By Grandpa "Bear Valley" Zheng

Where is Denmark?
Well, if I got on my bike, I'd be in Denmark in just a few hour's time.
It's different on the Internet. Have a look at this scandalous traceroute
output which that Klanowski guy's computer produced this night:

Tracing route to www.viasat.dk [193.89.248.13]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    35 ms    34 ms    33 ms  netgw-hl9.lynet.de [194.127.179.9]
  2   124 ms    35 ms    35 ms  burgtor-if.lynet.de [194.127.179.253]
  3    42 ms    40 ms    40 ms  cisco1-hl.lynet.de [194.127.178.11]
  4   356 ms   353 ms   390 ms  lynet-ne-gw.gtn.com [194.231.18.33]
  5   804 ms  1141 ms   942 ms  Vienna3.VA.ALTER.NET [137.39.156.245]
  6  1357 ms   516 ms     *     Fddi0-0.BR2.TCO1.ALTER.NET [137.39.11.24]
  7  1582 ms     *     1481 ms  Hssi1-0.CR2.DCA1.Alter.Net [137.39.100.22]
  8     *      929 ms     *     101.Hssi4-0.CR2.NYC1.Alter.Net
[137.39.58.22]
  9   518 ms     *     1426 ms  Hssi4-0.New-York3.NY.Alter.Net
[137.39.100.5]
 10  2218 ms  1026 ms  1145 ms  Fddi1-0.New-York1.NY.Alter.Net
[137.39.126.1]
 11  1366 ms  2505 ms  1823 ms  UBN-Sweden-gw.ALTER.NET [137.39.244.98]
 12  1099 ms  1082 ms   824 ms  Copenhagen2.DK.net [194.23.0.42]
 13   895 ms  1473 ms  1820 ms  Spider2.DK.net [193.89.0.18]
 14  2096 ms     *     2208 ms  ISDN.centrum.dk [193.89.56.46]
 15     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 16  2170 ms  2671 ms  2771 ms  www.viasat.dk [193.89.248.13]

Yes, from North Germany to Denmark via New York and Sweden. Funny! Better
visit this site which tells you all about my mountain bike:
http://www.marinbikes.com/tech/enthspec.html#bear

Cookies again
I received some more comments on the cookies story in Wednesday's Sat-ND.
I'll try to keep follow-ups out of Sat-ND in the future, instead putting
them on my Web pages which may come alive over the weekend. Some cookie
pages first, then maybe a Singapore special, or a new satellite company by
the name of Société Erosif des Xylophones... or do you know any other
French word starting with X? Anyway, watch this space:
http://www.sat-net.com/pck/zheng/


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

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