SRG contracts additional Hotbird transponder

[Analoguesat]

SWITZERLAND’s PUBLIC BROADCASTER, SRG SSR, DOUBLES CAPACITY ON
EUTELSAT FOR FREE ACCESS TO HIGH-QUALITY DIGITAL BROADCASTS
FOR SWISS HOMES

Paris, 15 March 2006

Eutelsat Communications (Euronext Paris: ETL) and SRG SSR today announced the signature of a new satellite capacity contract at Eutelsat’s HOT BIRD™ video neighbourhood. The new contract concerns a 33MHz transponder on the HOT BIRD™ 7A satellite, which was launched on March 11 by an Ariane 5 ECA booster. This new lease doubles the capacity used by Switzerland’s public broadcasting organisation, which has been transmitting via a transponder on Eutelsat’s HOT BIRD™ 3 satellite since 1997.
SRG SSR’s selection of HOT BIRD™ 7A supports its objective to drive the switchover from analogue to a fully digital broadcasting environment and to provide high quality reception and immediate coverage to 100 per cent of Swiss homes. By increasing its satellite resources, SRG SSR is substantially improving the quality of the images it broadcasts, doubling the bitrate of its video signals to deliver DVD quality to all Swiss homes via cable or direct-to-home (DTH). Today, 80 per cent of Switzerland’s 3.5 million television homes are cabled and 300,000 are equipped for DTH reception. The phasing-out of
analogue terrestrial TV should increase the number of satellite DTH homes to 500,000.

Due the particularities of Switzerland’s Alpine environment, satellite has played an important role in the country’s public television network for feeding cable headends and directly serving homes beyond cable. Satellite reception of the seven Swiss public television channels and 16 radio stations is free but encrypted in order to limit access to Swiss territory. Within this framework the
SRG SSR Group, which brings together the three regional arms of Swiss public television, has taken end-to-end charge of the audiovisual broadcasting chain, from content gathering to distribution of smartcards to the general public. On the occasion of the contract signature Hans Strassmann, Technical Director of SRG SSR said: “By doubling satellite bandwidth at our disposal we can execute our strategy of delivering quality by improving image performance and we can also prepare for the introduction of Dolby sound and associated digital services using the MHP multimedia platform. Eutelsat’s HOT
BIRD™ 3 and HOT BIRD™ 7A satellites will broadcast the complete portfolio of SRG SSR television and radio channels in a single platform”.

“Eutelsat is already a partner in the roll-out of Digital Terrestrial Television in France, Italy and the UK. By feeding terrestrial networks and complementing coverage through direct-to-home satellite reception, this new contract with SRG SSR underscores the dual role that our satellites can play in digital switchover for public and private broadcasters in Europe,” affirmed Giuliano
Berretta, Eutelsat CEO. “Primary distribution of television broadcasts to over-the-air transmitters and cable headends constitutes an important activity for Eutelsat which is benefiting from the current dynamic in DTT deployment. Today, fixed and mobile broadband networks are creating new opportunities perfectly suited to satellites which have a strong role to play in feeding
headends and providing universal coverage whether for content delivery to 140cm screens or mobile phones with screens 30 times smaller.”