PanAmSat Corporation announced Jan. 20 that the company will provide domestic U.S. satellite services for DirecTV, the United States’ leading satellite television service, to expand its programming lineup further. DirecTV plans to offer niche and special interest programming on PanAmSat’s Galaxy III-R satellite, which provides high-power transmission coverage of the continental United States.
In an agreement in principle with PanAmSat, DirecTV initially will lease four Ku-band transponders on Galaxy III-R. In addition, DirecTV will have the ability to expand its transmission capacity to deliver more than 120 additional channels of special interest programming, additional niche programs and future business-to-business applications. DirecTV will also have expansion capabilities for the launch of high definition television programming later this year.
“Galaxy III-R will provide DirecTV with comprehensive U.S. coverage to introduce a range of new service offerings with signal reception using mini dishes,” said Lourdes Saralegui, PanAmSat’s executive vice president. “DirecTV’s expanded service offering will become PanAmSat’s first direct-to-home platform in the United States and our seventh worldwide.”
“This new platform provides DirecTV with a powerful capability to provide a broad array of diverse programming services to currently underserved consumer segments,” said Larry Chapman, executive vice president of DirecTV. “Using the new Hughes Network Systems equipment, these subscribers will not only have access to unique and previously unavailable programming, but also receive all of the DirecTV programming available at our 101 degree location.”
Galaxy III-R, built by Hughes Space and Communications Co., was launched in December 1995 and contains 24 C-band and 24 Ku-band transponders. The spacecraft is located at 95 degrees West Longitude.
Hughes Network Systems (HNS) has developed a new DSS® model which includes an elliptical-shaped 21- by 35-inch satellite dish and receiver to view DirecTV programming selections from Galaxy III-R. Consumers that purchase this modified HNS-brand DBS system will also have access from the same antenna to the more than 175 channels of programming offered over DirecTV satellites located at 101 degree West Longitude.
For the initial roll out, DirecTV will distribute on Galaxy III-R a series of six ethnic programming channels owned and operated by Ethnic American Broadcasting Company (EABC) of Fort Lee, N.J. Programming will include WMNB-TV (Russian); Network Asia, serving Asians from the Indian subcontinent; Ukrainian Broadcasting Network, or UBN (Ukrainian); Ciao TV – The Italian Superchannel (Italian), backed by Berlusconi’s Mediaset; and both the Egyptian Satellite Channel, or ESC, and Nile TV (Arabic). The agreement with DirecTV provides EABC with sufficient capacity to distribute as many as 20 leading ethnic channels from countries around the world.
