SES Astra contracts UK's Five for additional capacity

[BGonaSTICK]

SES ASTRA, an SES GLOBAL company (Euronext Paris and Luxembourg Stock Exchange: SESG), has announced today that it has signed a new transponder contract with the British commercial TV broadcaster Five. The additional capacity will primarily be used for the company’s two new channels – Five Life and Five US – which will be launched in October. The broadcaster will initially take half of a transponder at the orbital position 28.2° East and ramp up to a full transponder in the second half of 2007.

Five attracts around 30 million viewers a week and generates over £300 million in advertising revenue - around 8.6% of the UK total. The company is owned by Europe’s largest broadcaster, the RTL Group, which operates 34 TV and 34 radio stations across Europe.

“With this additional agreement, we continue to consolidate our position as Europe’s leading direct-to-home (DTH) satellite company in an extremely competitive environment”, said Alexander Oudendijk, Chief Commercial Officer of SES ASTRA. “We are very pleased about our strong business relationship with Five and will continue to offer the best service possible to all our customers.”

Chris Anning, CTO for Five, said: “Five has come a long way since its launch in 1997; we have gone from a standing start to an audience share of over 6%. Considering the huge changes in the broadcast landscape over the last six or seven years that’s quite a feat. To meet the challenges of the next few years and further increase our overall audience share we will be launching exciting new channels and this transponder deal will give us the capacity we need to expand.”

[Analoguesat]

More capacity in 2007? - they are going to launch more channels!