SES Astra, an SES Global company and ORF Monday announced at the International Broadcasting Convention IBC 2004 in Amsterdam, the signing of a long-term agreement on the use of additional Astra transponder capacity by Austria’s leading public broadcaster.
ORF will start utilizing the additional transmission capacity on Astra’s orbital position of 19.2 degrees East in 2004. At the same time, the existing contracts between ORF and SES Astra have been extended.
The agreement further consolidates a mutually beneficial partnership that has been in place for many years.
Andreas Gall, Technical Director of ORF, commented: “With the extension of our transponder capacity we have, on the one hand, laid the foundation for providing our TV viewers and radio audiences with best-quality programs and improvements to current services for years to come.
Furthermore, with these new transmission capacites we can extend our role as a service provider for other TV, radio and data suppliers. With our existing know-how we can provide a full service offer for these clients – from the encryption and the up-linking to the transmission itself.”
Ferdinand Kayser, President and CEO of SES Astra, stated: “We are very pleased about this extension of our cooperation with such a renowned public broadcasting company as ORF. The expanded product range offered by our longstanding partner will further enhance the programming choice available from Europe’s most popular orbital position of 19.2 degrees East.”
