M7 Group Contracts Additional Astra Capacity for New Belgium HD Services

Feb 01, 2012

SES has signed a new capacity and uplink agreement with M7 Group, the Luxembourg-based satellite television provider, for distribution via ASTRA's 19.2 degrees East orbital position.

The newly contracted capacity on 19.2 degrees East will be used for the direct-to-home (DTH) distribution of the HD versions of La Une and RTL TVi, the leading French speaking channels for the Belgian market. The channels will be included in the TeleSAT offering, the M7 Group owned satellite television bouquet for French speaking Belgium that started on ASTRA 19.2 degrees East in November last year. In January 2012, M7 Group already added RTBF's third channel "La Trois" to its TeleSAT offering on ASTRA.

Ferdinand Kayser, Chief Commercial Officer of SES, said: "We are delighted about this new capacity agreement with M7 Group. The addition of the HD services of RTBF and RTL is also very good news for satellite viewers in French speaking Belgium, greatly enhancing their viewing experience."

Hans Troelstra, Chief Operating Officer of M7 Group, stated: "With the rapidly increasing sales of HD screens, broadcasting in HDTV is becoming a must in a highly competitive market like Belgium. We are therefore very pleased with the addition of the new HD channels on ASTRA 19.2 degrees East, since this will greatly improve our proposition for satellite viewers in French speaking Belgium."

M7 Group provides DTH services to more than three million homes in The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia using the brand names CanalDigitaal, TV Vlaanderen, TeleSAT, AustriaSat, Skylink and CS Link. To serve the various European markets, M7 Group currently utilises four transponders at ASTRA 19.2 degrees East and eight transponders at ASTRA 23.5 degrees East.