DEFINING OUR POSITIONS
New neighbourhoods develop as regions embrace the digital age

Eutelsat’s reputation and commercial standing has been built on serving a core market of western Europe from our prime orbital position of 13° East; home to the HOT BIRD™ fleet of satellites, and EUROBIRD™1 at 28.5° East.

As the broadcasting world continues its transition into a fully digital environment, Eutelsat has also actively pursued a strategy to build up new video neighbourhoods hosting high-power satellites with broad footprints. More than half of the 400 new digital channels that came on board Eutelsat last year target central and eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

45 new channels for the Middle East
Broadcasting markets in this region are in a phase of dynamic growth. According to the Arab Advisors Group, 45 new channels launched in the Middle East during the first four months of 2006 alone. To support this demand, in July this year Eutelsat deployed the ATLANTIC BIRD™ 4 satellite to 7° West which also hosts two satellites operated by Nilesat, the Egyptian satellite operator. ATLANTIC BIRD™ 4 is also used by Noorsat, the Bahrain-based provider of capacity for video services. In addition, Eutelsat provides capacity for direct-tohome services over the Middle East through EUROBIRD™ 2 from 25.5° East.

From Russia to the African Continent
36° East, with W4 and SESAT 1, is the key position for these regions. NTV Plus, Russia’s leading pay-TV platform has leased additional capacity on W4 to support its expansion, and Poverkhnost, selected W4 to launch the Ukraine’s first pay-TV platform. The 36° East position also hosts the growing MultiChoice Africa platform, with some 90 channels broadcasting English, French, Portuguese and Hindi to homes in nearly 50 countries on the African continent and nearby Indian Ocean Islands.

Where East meets best
Our W2 satellite at 16° East has further consolidated its market position, with broadcast platforms and broadcasters that include SBB (Serbia), DCS (Romania), Digitalb (Albania), Bikam (Bulgaria). W2 is a popular choice for broadcasters as viewers with a double-feed antenna can also receive free-to-air channels from HOT BIRD™.

In Turkey, DigiTurk, the country’s leading pay-TV platform, which broadcasts from Eutelsat’s W3A satellite at 7° East, continues its expansion in both channel offering and subscriber base.

Satellite and DTT
In addition to broadcasting direct-to-home and to cable networks through those neighbourhoods, Eutelsat’s satellites also play an important role in the transport of television programmes to retransmitters. In France, for example, since March 2005, ATLANTIC BIRD™ 3 ensures the primary transport of five digital multiplexes to terrestrial transmitters. This satellite, located at 5° West, already delivers analogue terrestrial TV channels to transmitters across France, received by 1.6 million homes with poor terrestrial reception.