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TELE-satellit News - 14 January 1995




This news is provided free of charge to on-line users by TELE-satellit 
magazine and TS News Service GB. IT IS FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY. It may 
not be reproduced for commercial reasons by any means what so ever. If 
you wish to reproduce this news or redistribute it for non commercial 
use please contact the email address below.

Der TS Nachrichtendienst ist ein Service fuer die Freunde von 
TELE-satellit und TS-TV und ist nur fuer persoenliche infromation 
freigegeben.
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TELE-satellit News - so good we thought we'd send it to you daily

 Well, not quite. We offer apologies to everyone that found repeat 
issues of TS-News in their mailboxes daily. An errant mailer at 
Nethold in Holland (check the Organisation: line in the repeats) 
caused the problem.

 We have tried to contact Nethold and temporarily suspended all 
Nethold addresses from the list to stop this problem.

 By means of an apology, we are trying to get Nethold to offer free 
Filmnet subscriptions to all of you .... but don't hold you breath !

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TELE-satellit
EUROPE'S SATELLITE MAGAZINE
International Satellite Broadcasting News
Number 84, Week ending 14 January 1996
By Martyn Williams
News Desk : Internet martyn@twics.com  or CompuServe CIS:martynw
(c) TELE-satellit Magazine


BBC INVESTIGATES SATELLITE CENSORSHIP
  LONDON, England (TS) -- BBC World Service Television is 
investigating reports that news stories about the expulsion by 
Britiain of a Saudi dissident were blacked out on its service via the 
Saudi Arabian based Orbit television package.
  The signals travel from London via satellite to Rome where they are 
combined with other channels and sent up to the Arabsat satellite. The 
Rome earth station is operated by Saudi company with close ties to the 
Saudi royal family.
  "We are aware of reported interruptions to the transmission of BBC 
Arabic television. We are investigating the matter as an issue of 
utmost importance," a BBC spokesman was reported as saying.
  The dissident, Mohammad al-Masari, has been living in London and 
campaigning against the Saudi royal family.
  Reuters reported Orbit were making no comment and that a leading 
hotel in Riyadh had been told not to carry the programming by the 
Saudi government.


NEWS CORP WANTS THE OLYMPICS
  LONDON, England (TS) -- From the year 2000 you could be hearing, 
"The Olympics - Exclusively Live On Sky". Rupert Murdoch this week bid 
a reported $2 billion for European rights to the Olympic games from 
2000 to 2008.
  The massive bid is an attempt to break the long standing traditon of 
awarding the rights to the EBU which has in turn meant the games can 
be carried on all EBU member stations across Europe and on Eurosport.
  The bid values each of the five games in the period at $400 million 
compared to the $240 million the EBU paid for the Atlanta 1996 event.
  Apparently, the deal would place some events on Murdoch's pay TV 
channels Sky Sports and Sky Sports 2 while some events would be 
carried free to air. If Murdoch wins the games it could also open Sky 
Sports to a pan European audience.
  While the amount bid is large compared to the EBU's previous 
contracts, it is dwarfed by the $3.6 billion that NBC recently paid 
for US broadcast rights to the games.


ARIANE LAUNCHES PANAMSAT, MEASAT
  KOUROU, French Guiana (TS) -- An Ariane 44L rocket carried two 
satellites into space from Kourou in South America last Friday. Flight 
82 took off at 2310 UTC, 1810 EST, 0010 CET Saturday.
  From its orbital position over the Atlantic Ocean, PanAmSat's PAS-3R 
will provide global coverage of the Americas, Europe and Africa, 
offering a full range of telecommunications services. It is equipped 
with 16 C-band and 16 Ku-band transponders, and offers a design life 
of 14 years.
  Measat 1 (Malaysia East Asia Satellite) is owned and operated by 
Binariang Sdn. Bhd. and is equipped with 12 C-band and 4 Ku-band 
transponders. The first national telecommunications satellite, it will 
provide both fixed and mobile telecom services for Malaysia and 
Southeast Asia.
  The next launch, Flight 83, is scheduled for February 2, 1996.  An 
Ariane 44P launch vehicle will be used to place into geostationary 
transfer orbit the N-STARb telecommunications satellite, built by 
Space Systems/Loral of the United States for the Japanese companies 
NTT and NTT DoCoMo.


ABC NEWSONE AIDS AFFILIATES IN BLIZZARD COVERAGE
  NEW YORK, New York, USA (SHOPTALK) -- The Blizzard of '96 produced a 
blizzard of live shots supplied by NewsOne/ABSAT for ABC affiliates, 
and amongst ABC Stations who traded live shots up and down the coast 
as the storm bombarded the Eastern Seaboard.
  Alternating between ABC's Bob Schmidt and Jennifer Glasse...NewsOne 
offered stations a total of 43 group live shots, beginning with the 
evening newscasts Sunday (1/7), throughout the entire broadcast day 
Monday (from 5:30am/et through 11pm newscasts on the West Coast), and 
again on Tuesday from 12 noon through 9pm/et.  ABSAT coordinated an 
estimated 150 custom liveshots during the brunt of the storm.
  The level of cooperation among the stations was outstanding, and 
provided the stations an excellent opportunity maximize each other's 
resources to expand their coverage of the 'big picture.'  Given the 
size of the storm, which covered much of the eastern seaboard NewsOne 
coordinated a series of reporter whip around from a dozen stations 
Monday, for both early & late newscasts.
  The reports were each 20-25 seconds with reporters self-giving 
self-intros and their location, and the latest on the situation in 
their city.  Each station also provided 3-4 shots of good weather 
video.  That gave stations the option to string together as many or as 
few as the needed to tell the story, run the standups individually, or 
package them together with the b-roll.  Participating stations 
included those in the worst hit areas like WABC/New York, 
WPVI/Philadelphia, WLOS/Ashville, WTVD/Durham, WCVB/Boston, New 
England Cable News, WTNH/New Haven, WNEP/Scranton, WMTW/Portland, 
Maine, and WTEN/Albany, plus the airport delays in Miami from WPLG, 
and even the sunny weather on the beaches of Los Angeles from KABC.
  NewsOne also provided WABC's & WPVI's off-air signals Monday during 
morning hours.


GE WANTS MORE SATELLITE SLOTS
  NEW YORK, New York, USA (GE) -- GE Capital Satellites International, 
Inc. (GECSI) announced that it is seeking 12 satellite orbital slots 
to serve the European, African and Asia-Pacific regions. Applications 
for these orbital locations on behalf of GE Capital Satellites 
International have been made to the International Telecommunications 
Union (ITU) by the Government of Gibraltar, a British Dependent 
Territory. Satellites constructed and launched to these locations 
would be operated from a planned satellite control facility on 
Gibraltar.
  "Our vision is to be an owner/operator of satellite-based 
communications services in specific international markets. This is a 
significant step in realizing that vision," said John F. Connelly, 
chairman and chief executive officer of GE Americom. "We intend to go 
where we can best serve our customers, using GE's global experience, 
resources and extensive international network to help satisfy our 
customers' requirements worldwide," he said.
  Planned orbital locations include 3.0E, 6.5W, 10.0W, 15.0W, 23.0" 
for Europe; 37.5E, 47.0E and 51.0E for Africa; and 97.0E, 100.7E, 
105.3E and 108.2E for Asia and the Pacific. The proposed satellites as 
currently envisioned would be used mainly for video programming 
distribution, including direct-to-home, cable headend and other 
broadcast applications. The planned spacecraft design would 
accommodate both analog and digital video formats, as well as other 
uses including VSAT and data networks.


ECHOSTAR REACHES FINAL ORBIT
  ENGLEWOOD, Colorado, USA (ECHOSTAR) -- EchoStar Communications Corp. 
announced this week that EchoStar-I, its first direct broadcast 
satellite has reached its FCC-assigned final orbit at 119-degrees
west.
  This attainment of final geosynchronous orbit culminates 
approximately ten days of various spacecraft maneuvers managed and 
implemented by Lockheed Martin,the manufacturer of EchoStar's fleet of 
satellites.
  The satellite was placed in its final location after completing two 
east-west 100-minute thruster burns.  The solar panels and antennas 
were successfully deployed as expected earlier this week. In-orbit 
payload testing will begin immediately and is expected to continue 
through early February.
  Programming is due to begin in March.


CBS ADDS NEWS FEED CAPACITY
  NEW YORK, New York, USA (GE) -- CBS and GE American Communications 
have signed an agreement to provide CBS News with satellite news 
gathering services via the GE GSTAR 4 communications satellite. CBS 
will use the satellite to transmit domestic and global news, special 
events and breaking stories to all of its more than 200 US network TV 
stations.
  The terms of the agreement call for full-time Satellite News 
Gathering (SNG) transponder service on GSTAR 4, as well as occasional 
SNG services on the GE GSTAR 1, 2 and 3 communications satellites. GE 
Americom will also provide satellite access services and voice 
communication services for CBS.
  


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CREDITS,

Reports in TELE-satellit news are from our worldwide network of 
reporters and sources. In particular we would like to thank :

Curt Swinehart for keeping us up to date with all parts of the 
satellite industry.

Don Fitzpatrick of DFA in San Francisco for providing permission to 
reproduce articles from Shoptalk, the TV news industry's daily news 
and information magazine.

OMRI material was reprinted with permission of the Open Media Research 
Institute, a nonprofit organization with research offices in Prague, 
Czech Republic. For more information on OMRI publications, please 
write to: info@omri.cz

Reproduction in part of Jonathan's Space Report was maded possible by 
kind permission of Jonathan McDowell. To read the full edition see 
http://hea-www.harvard.edu/QEDT/jcm/space/jsr/jsr.html or 
ftp://sao-ftp.harvard.edu/pub/jcm/space/news/news.*

News from Radio Sweden is made possible by Geroge Wood, presenter of 
Sweden Calling DXers/MediaScan,  the world's oldest radio program 
about international broadcasting. Radio Sweden has presented this 
round-up of radio news, features, and interviews on Tuesdays since 
1948. It's currently broadcast on the first and third Tuesdays of the 
month. http://www.sr.se/rs




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