| Measat: Broadcast services still core revenue source |
| Posted: December 2009 | ||||||
 KUALA LUMPUR – Malaysia’s satellite operator Measat Satellite Systems is on the up and up despite the current economic downturn.
Its revenues jumped from US$37 million in 2006 to almost $60 million in 2008 — and, in addition, it has in its order books backhaul businesses worth $600 million. And while the world is struggling in the troughs of the global economic crisis, Measat’s fleet of four satellites continues to strengthen the company’s finances, with broadcasters as the major source of its business.In a recent interview with APB, a beaming Terry Bleakley, vice-president of Commercial Operations at Measat, said the company’s latest satellite, Measat-3a, which became operational in July this year, already has a fill rate of 60%. Considering that the usual business case in the satellite industry is for a satellite to achieve 75% fill rate only after two to three years of operation, Measat-3a’s performance is “impressive”, he said. Measat-3a is in the same orbital slot as Measat-3, which became operational in January 2007. Measat-3 currently has 90% fill rate. These fill rates include DTH (direct-to-home) service deliveries, and other TV and video distribution services. Measat currently supports three DTH operators, Astro in Malaysia, Reliance Big TV in India and Aora in Indonesia. “DTH business is an important business because DTH customers tend to sign long-term contracts. They have large subscriber base and it is strategically difficult for their subscribers to change [the installed direction of] their satellite antennas, so they tend to stay with you for a long time,” Bleakley explained. In fact, compared with Internet service providers who would normally sign one- or two-year contracts with satellite operators, broadcasters and DTH providers would sign five-, 10- or 15-year contracts. “We’ve been concentrating a lot on growing the video distribution market over the past two years. We now have six multiple channel per carrier (MCPC) platforms looking at both Measat-3 and Measat-3a. They cover four strategic locations: Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and the Middle East. We are carrying over 42 SD channels utilising the two satellites, and seven HD channels — more HD than any other Asia satellite operators for distribution purposes.” Bleakley also revealed that Measat is about to close a deal on another three HD channels, and is expected to have more than 10 HD channels on the company’s satellites in the first quarter of 2010. Commenting on the trend of HD broadcasting in Asia, Bleakley said: “We think we are just at the crest of the wave and it is going to grow dramatically. Pay-TV operators throughout Asia are now looking into introducing a lot more HD, so we think HD is definitely very important. ” Measat, which has the rights to 16 orbital slots around the world, is currently in talks with numerous operators and companies to replace the satellites at the same slots or at any of its 13 unused slots. “Our vision is to be the leading satellite operator in emerging markets, so our focus is really on Asia and Africa. For Asia, we’ve moved out from the comfort zone of Malaysia and South-east Asia ... and are providing services into India, the Middle East, Australia and other places,” said Bleakley. Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites       
Powered by !JoomlaComment 3.26
3.26 Copyright (C) 2008 Compojoom.com / Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved." |
