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TELE-satellit News - 19 May 1996

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 
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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
EUROPE'S SATELLITE MAGAZINE
International Satellite Broadcasting News
Number 99, Week ending 19 May 1996
By Martyn Williams
News Desk : Internet martyn@twics.com  or CompuServe CIS:martynw
(c) TELE-satellit Magazine


GALAXY SATELLITE READIED FOR LAUNCH
  CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida, USA (TS) -- A McDonnell Douglas Delta II 
rocket will launch the Galaxy IX satellite for Hughes Communications, 
on Wednesday, May 22, this week from Cape Canaveral Air Station.
  The launch window opens at 8:36 p.m. and closes at 9:37 p.m. EDT. On 
the Internet's World Wide Web you can follow news at 
http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/elv/DOCS/next_up.htm and for the latest. TV 
coverage is scheduled to be carried on Galaxy 4, transponder 11 from 
7:30pm EDT to 10:30pm EDT (2330 - 0230 UTC). In the case of a delay to 
the 23rd, coverage will be on Brasilsat A1, transponder 4. 


BRITISH TELECOM AND BSKYB IN DIGITAL ALLIANCE - REPORT
  LONDON, England (TS) -- Weekend editions of the Financial Times have 
reported that British Telecom and British Sky Broadcasting are in 
advanced negotiations to promote digital broadcasting in the UK.
  The interest of BT is in interactive services, said the newspaper, 
which would require the use of telephone lines, and that means money 
to BT, to create a channel back to BSkyB.


RUSSIAN SOYUZ LAUNCH FAILS, US SATELLITE LOST
  MOSCOW, Russia (Sat-ND) -- Under normal circumstances, nobody would 
have taken notice of the Russian-American satellite project SPIN-2 
that should have started today. But circumstances couldn't be called 
normal anymore when ground control lost contact with the Soyuz-U 
booster and the KOSMOS satellite six minutes into the flight. Experts 
from the launch site in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, blamed a gust of wind 
that had ripped off some of the rocket's ceramic coating.
  It's pretty clear that the satellite is lost, even though it just 
should have been put into an 250 to 300 km orbit around the earth. 
It's also known that the KOSMOS bird should have stayed there for 45 
days to take high-resolution photographs of the earth's surface.
  There are contradicting reports on what territories were involved, 
although the United States seem to have been the main target. Russia's 
Sovinformsputnik signed a contract with a company called US Aerial 
Images last summer, but that obviously was just a part of the mission.
  According to the Russian news ageny ITAR-TASS, the KOSMOS satellite 
was due to "make photos of three million square kilometers of the 
Earth's surface on orders from American firms, companies and private 
persons." This comes more or less close to the DIY spy satellite deals 
recently revealed by TELE-satellite.


TCI OPTIMISTIC ON MERGER PROSPECTS
  WASHINGTON, DC, USA (DFA) -- Despite objections by the Federal Trade 
Commission about the merge of  Time Warner Inc. and Turner 
Broadcasting System Inc., Tele- Communications Inc. Chairman John 
Malone said Wednesday he believes it's only a matter of time before 
the deal is approved.
  "The people involved have enough flexibility to make the deal happen 
and enough backbone to fight the government," Malone said. Malone was 
not specific about what he would do to insure that the deal went 
through. Tele-Communications Inc., one of the largest cable system 
operators in the country, is a major stockholder in Turner. "I think 
we can satisfy the FTC's concerns that we're not going to take control 
of Time Warner," he said, "but we're not going to be a passive 
investor." (LA Times via Shoptalk)


TBS REPRIMANDED OVER AUM VIDEO SCANDAL
  TOKYO, Japan (TS) -- One of Japan's major national commercial TV 
networks, Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS), was reprimanded by the 
Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications over a scandal involving Aum 
Shinrikyo, the Japanese cult involved in the subway Sarin gas attack 
in Tokyo last year.
  TBS producers showed an interview with a lawyer working against the 
cult, Sakamoto, to officials from Aum before it was aired. As a result 
of complaints from Aum the video, which was severely critical of Aum, 
was not aired. Aum members kidnapped Sakamoto, his wife and child, 
several days later and murdered them soon after.
  An internal TBS investigation originally found it had done no wrong 
and the video was not shown although a subsequent investigation showed 
it had indeed showed the video. TBS president Sunahara was summoned by 
MPT minister Hino today and presented personally with the reprimand.
  It states TBS has broken public trust. TBS will cancel the "Space-J" 
documentary program and the afternoon "Super Wide" magazine show, 
whose producers were those involved in the video scandal. The 
broadcaster must review programming policies and review measures taken 
to ensure safety of interviewees.
  Several weeks ago many of those responsible for the showing of the 
video were fired and the TBS president resigned. In addition, TBS says 
it will demonstrate its regret by not airing any late night local 
programming from May 20 to 24th. The measure will cut the main late 
night evening news, "News 23" from its usual end time of 0020 to 2350.


NICK TO LAUNCH IN SOUTH AMERICA
  NEW YORK, New York, USA (DFA) -- Viacom Inc. said this week that its 
Nickelodeon children's television  unit is planning to launch a 
24-hour channel in Latin America. The channel would use Spanish and 
Portuguese-language programs acquired form Toronto-based Nelvana 
Enterprises Inc. The shows would be transmitted via PanAmSat from 
Miami. Financial terms have not been disclosed. (Wall Street Journal 
via Shoptalk)


QVC UK TO BREAK EVEN, MORE INTERNATIONAL CHANNELS PLANNED
  LONDON, England (TS) -- Home shopping channel QVC will break even 
this year according to the Dow Jones news service quoting president 
Douglas Briggs. Revenue this year is expected to reach $90 million to 
$95 million and more than $120 million next year.
  With the success of its first international service, the broadcaster 
is now looking at launching to consumers in Germany and Japan said the 
report.


INTELSAT ENDS TRAFFIC MEETING
  WASHINGTON, DC, USA (TS) -- Intelsat's annual Global Traffic Meeting 
was concluded on Friday, 10 May 1996 after a four day run that was 
attended by more than 1,500 delegates representing more than 300 
companies from 157 countries.  This made it one of the world's largest 
gatherings of international communications customers ever.  Last 
year's meeting was attended by over 1,100 delegates.
  During the meeting, international communications users discussed 
their satellite traffic plans for 1997 and beyond. The information is 
critical for Intelsat's own system planning goals said the 
organization. A key Intelsat objective is to ensure that customers 
have access to satellite capacity when and where they need it anywhere 
around the world according to Intelsat.
  Among new technologies on display was bandwidth-on-demand via a TDMA 
product. This is a dynamic bandwidth allocation system with a highly 
flexible interface for applications such as voice, video, data, and 
multimedia sevices and was demonstrated across Intelsat 705.
  Also demonstrated was thin-route telephony via Demand Assigned 
Multiple Access (DAMA) network, which showed that DAMA can be used by 
scattered and/or mobile users in rural communities where there is no 
wired infrastructure.
  ATM transmission was also demonstrated using Ku-band capacity over 
the Intelsat 705 satellite and a 2.4 m VSAT antenna. The demonstration 
was conducted in cooperation with COMSAT World Systems and showed 
several business applications such as desktop video-conferencing, 
Internet/World Wide Web and MPEG-2 video. 


JAPAN CONSIDERING SPY SATELLITE
  TOKYO, Japan (SAT-ND) -- Japan is interested in possessing its own 
spy satellites, as Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto told reporters. 
However, he also stated that this was "a question of cost 
performance". In 1969, Japan's parliament banned the use of space for 
military purposes.
  Following recent discussion on the subject, Japan's NEC Corp 
estimated the cost of a national reconnaissance satellite at US$2 
billion. Besides, it would take eight years before it was operational. 
A study by the defence ministry came to the conclusion that a system 
consisting of five to seven satellites could cost up to US$10 billion. 
Its main purpose will most likely be tracking military units, 
facilities and weapons in North Korea. The project might also give 
Japan's launcher H2 a lift. (Sat-ND)


IN BRIEF
-- Australia's Sky Channel says it will begin broadcasting horse 
racing across Asia via the Asiasat 2 satellite. The new service, which 
begins Monday 20th, will be subscription based and broadcast for 12 
hours per day.
-- European Business News, otherwise known as EBN, has launched a home 
on the World Wide Web. Check out http://www.ebn.co.uk/ .
-- Since Wednesday ESPN has been broadcast on PAS-4, 68.5 degrees 
East, in the B-MAC system on 3.862 GHz, horizontal.
-- The international war crimes Tribunal in the Hague is available 
across Europe via Satellite. Check Eutelsat II-F3, 16 degrees East, on 
11.638 GHz, horizontal between 1000 and 1800 CEST on weekdays. Sound 
is: Croat, 6.60/7.02/7.56; English 7.20; French 7.38. (Norbert 
Schlammer via Sat-ND)
-- Veronica Nieuwsradio has checked out of Astra, hardly a surprise 
seeing the station will close soon because of poor audience figures. 
On 7,74/7,92 you can now hear an unidentified non-stop music channel.

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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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