Arena: Launch in August ‘06 on APS impossible

Arena, the new owner of the pay-TV rights for the German Football League, has to present its pay offer on time for the start of the German Football League on 11 August 2006. The Unity Media subsidiary is actually negotiating about the satellite transmission of its programme. The new pay-tv provider is in discussions with SES Astra as well. With Astra Playout Services (formerly DPC) in Munich, the satellite operator disposes of the technically necessary infrastructure to transmit pay-TV providers via satellite.

Time is ticking away but new obstacles seem to appear which could render a launch of Arena on APS impossible. APS CEO Wilfried Urner e. g. reported in an oral hearing at the Higher Regional Court Düsseldorf that a lot of time would be necessary in order to integrate customers on APS. “A pay-TV project has a lead time of 9 to 20 months”, Urner explained during the hearing.

Before the senate a complaint of satellite operator Eutelsat concerning the takeover of the Digital Playout Center DPC (now APS) by SES Astra was heard. Eutelsat fears a deterioration of competition on the pay-TV market due to this takeover.

One topic of the trial was, among others, the fact that APS was not able to show new customers one year after the takeover by SES Astra. Eutelsat took this as proof for its criticism on the worse competition conditions. Wilfried Urner however explained the missing customers with the long lead time for the realisation of a pay-TV project. In this regard, the fact that the launch of new pay-TV channels last year took place predominantly in the cable sector becomes interesting. Only EasyTV offers its programme via satellite but they use their own platform for transmission. This could be assessed as another sign for worse competition conditions, an insider said to Digitalmagazin.

First negotiations between APS and Arena are reported to have taken place in January, after Arena had received the licence rights shortly before Christmas 2005. Consequently, a launch of the Arena programme for the start of the German Football League, as demanded by the DFL, would not be possible. According to the lead time Wilfried Urner mentioned (9 months), the APS-transmission would be realistic in September 2006 at the earliest.

In the meantime, SES Astra has contradicted to this report, saying INFOSAT has made speculations.

Contact:
Holger Crump
Editor in Chief, INFOSAT Euro Media S.A.
Tel. 00352/710 707 600
redaktion@infosat.info
www.infosat.info

This release was published on openPR.