Dateline Asia
THE NEW STARS OF ARABIA
By Mark Long
Originally appeared in the July, 1996 issue of Tele-satellit.
©1996 MLE INC. All Rights Reserved.
Outside the 1996 Middle East International Cable and Satellite Show.
With last year's successful launch of a new crop of powerful dual band satellites, home satellite TV has finally come of age in the Middle East. In March of this year, more than 10,000 visitors from Europe, Asia and the Middle East travelled to Dubai to attend the second Middle East International Cable and Satellite show. The exhibition marked the emergence of digital satellite broadcasting as a major force in the Middle East. New regional programmers such as Orbit, Multi-channel Middle East and SHOWTIME strutted their digital stuff, dazzling attendees with a plethora of new digital TV services which can be received by antennas as small as 60 cm in diameter.
A New Orbit
No newcomer to this Arabian pack of programmers, the Orbit Satellite Television and Radio Network has been operating via the C-band Arabsat 1D satellite since May 25, 1994. At start up, the Rome-based programmer, which is backed by the powerful Mawarid Group of Saudi Arabia, targeted a high income audience for its digitally compressed program package, charging upwards of US$ 6,000 for an expensive Scientific Atlanta digital IRD. Their initial marketing effort was further hampered by the perforce use of the inclined orbit C band Arabsat 1D satellite which required the use of a 3m or larger antenna complete with motorised tracking capabilities. It therefore came as no surprise that this fledgling Middle Eastern programmer was soon drowning in a sea of red ink.
It was standing room only at the Orbit Exhibition Stand.
In November of 1994, Orbit secured a total Ku band capacity of 664 MHz on the new dual band INTELSAT 704 satellite which was subsequently launched to 66 degrees east longitude on January 10th of 1995. One of the satellite's three powerful Ku band spot beams was centred over the Arabian peninsula. On March 2, 1996, Orbit began transmitting through the new satellite, becoming the region's first digital Ku-band broadcaster. With the addition of this new satellite platform, suddenly Orbit could be received throughout the Middle East by antennas as small as 60cm in diameter. Moreover, Orbit is now using Scientific Atlanta's SA9232 IRD which is cheaper than earlier models and also features dual band digital MPEG 2 and analogue TV capabilities for the ultimate in satellite TV reception. By the end of 1995 Orbit's regional viewership had jumped dramatically; more than 80,000 TV sets throughout the region were tuned to the new multi channel service.
One key to the Orbit success story has been its ability to overcome the objections of various Arab factions concerned with programming content. Since the inception of the new service, Orbit has been very careful to control the content of all programming which appears on its channels. Movies and other western programming are edited to remove any segments which might be contrary to traditional Muslim values.
This has, however, led to some controversy. The BBC World Service's Arabic TV news channel, which was developed expressly for the Orbit programming package, was interrupted several times earlier this year to excise coverage of a Saudi Arabian dissident. While Orbit claimed that these interruptions were due to 'technical difficulties,' opposition members of the British Parliament voiced concern that the BBC's editorial independence had been compromised. The BBC and Orbit subsequently announced their mutual decision to part company, leaving the BBC at least temporarily without a partner for its Arabic language TV service.
Orbit also has adopted a flexible subscription policy which allows its viewers to select only those channels which they wish to receive from Orbit's twenty video and ten audio services. With 'Orbit Choice,' each channel is individually priced and there are no basic packages to which viewers are forced to subscribe. Moreover, from the time of installation, subscribers receive a full two months of the entire Orbit spectrum free of charge so that each viewer will the the opportunity to make an informed choice. Best of all, the retail price of the Orbit satellite TV receiving system was recently slashed dramatically to just US$ 1,200.
DSTv: Waiting In The Wings
U.S. based programmer Viacom International announced a new digital, direct-to-home (DTH) satellite program package called SHOWTIME which features seven popular American TV services: The Movie Channel, Nickelodeon, MTV, VH1, TV Land, The Paramount Channel and Bloomberg Information TV. The new service, which broadcasts via Ku band capacity on the PAS 4 satellite stationed at 68.5 degrees east longitude, is being introduced into the Middle East by Gulf DTH, a new venture based in the United Arab Emirates. Reception of the SHOWTIME programming package within the region requires a 90cm dish, a digital MPEG-2 compatible IRD and a smart card subscription.Multichoice Middle East also announced in Dubai that it will begin offering an Arabic language family of program services by mid year. Multichoice will also use Ku band capacity on PAS 4 as well as share a common digital satellite TV (DSTv) conditional access system with SHOWTIME so that viewers will have the option of subscribing to both program packages. The Multichoice package will consist of as many as 28 TV services for the Middle East, including Filmnet and enhanced versions of the ART satellite TV channels which currently air on Arabsat 1D. Echostar, Pace and Panasonic will provide the IRDs for this new service, with the conditional access system and smart card technology to be supplied by Irdeto.
