SES: Entavio being downscaled

[SAT-WORLD]

SES Astra's “entavio” digital TV programme, launched last September, is still not finding a market.

With “slow consumer take-up to date”, the entavio product is being downscaled with reduced marketing while discussions with Premiere take place.

However, renting satellite capacity is good long-term business, and largely unaffected by short-term business challenges like the collapse of the dollar and the current credit crunch. Luxembourg-based satellite operator SES reported record numbers April 28, with net profit jumping 24% and 77% satellite utilisation, ahead of market expectations.

The collapse in the dollar’s value, especially against the strong Euro, does have an impact, of course, given that many of SES’ contracts are priced in dollars. Consequently SES has looked at its “recurring revenues” with the currency effect stripped out. On this measure SES turned in revenues of €390m, up 9.1% on the same period last year. But in reporting the actual numbers, SES’ revenue for Q1 was flat (€390.6m, compared with €392m for last year when special factors were present including the sell-off of the GE assets and when the dollar was stronger).

As for this year’s trading there’s good news and bad. The good news is that SES Americom’s IP-related businesses can expect to do better than anticipated, with IP-Prime’s target of 40 installed telcos likely to be exceeded this year. Astra2Connect’s Broadband by satellite service is also going gangbusters, with a backlog of €165m under existing contracts.

The past years saw some pressure on satellite transponder rentals in the industry as a whole, mostly because of industry-wide excess capacity. That situation is largely in the past, with SES now saying that transponder lease rentals are firm, and rising slightly which is especially good news for its Americom and New Skies divisions.

Romain Bausch, SES President and CEO, said all business units recorded record revenues. He used phrases like “strong performance, solid business and positive growth” to sum up the first three month’s trading. However, this past quarter has also seen the loss of the AMC-14 craft. SES is fully insured for the loss. On the upside, its Sirius-4 satellite at 5 deg East came into operation on Jan 24, freeing up the Sirius 2 satellite for a new mission – and called Astra 5A - at 31.5 deg East where SES can exploit 40 BSS frequencies. Astra 5A will use 26 of these frequencies “as a first step”. SES owns 90% of the Sirius platform. Swedish Space Corp owns the remaining 10%.

This will put a new orbital position at SES’ disposal, using a fully amortised satellite as the business platform. This suggests the possibility of some strong pricing options in Central and Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. Astra’s Middle East coverage will further grow later next year when it allocates 12 new transponders from Astra 3B to the region (launching Q4/2009).

Satellite operators love to trade utilisation figures as proof of their overall fleet efficiency, and SES is no exception. SES has seen fleet utilisation grow from 76.5% to 77.3% since December 31. Astra is the most efficient of SES’ portfolio of assets at 83.8% utilised (244 out of 291 transponders), with Americom at a very respectable 77.4% and New Skies having improved considerably over the past year to 71.3% utilised. Bausch indicated that by the end of this year SES’ overall fleet utilisation will be at 81%.

As to the rest of this year (and assuming $1.50 = €1) SES is giving guidance of overall revenues in the €1580m-€1620m for this year, and EBITDA in the range €1086m-€1126m. If the dollar should strengthen against the euro then these numbers will improve. The market seemed happy with this overview, and SES saw its shares move forward 0.33%.

Source:Rapid Tv News

[Analoguesat]

Oh what a pity - entavio has fallen flat

[wod]

i knew it would, just like premiere will do once murdock has got hold of it