SkyREPORT.COM News Headlines
News Update For 12/7/99
DISH Target-A New City A Week
EchoStar's DISH Network hopes to add roughly a city
a week to the list of markets it serves with local TV offerings. Chairman
Charlie Ergen spoke about that goal during his consumer Charlie Chat
Monday night. He said the effort should continue until local TV packages
are available for 20 or more markets. He also said that if a city has
a NFL franchise, "chances are that you will be getting your local channels."
Those cities, considered strong TV markets, could be key for EchoStar
as the regular football season ends. EchoStar has local TV channels
for customers in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston,
Washington, D.C., Dallas/Ft. Worth, Atlanta, Miami, Phoenix, Denver,
Pittsburgh and Salt Lake City. The company is eyeing local channel service,
depending on favorable retransmission consent agreements with broadcasters,
in these markets: Philadelphia, Detroit, Houston, Seattle/Tacoma, Cleveland,
Minneapolis, Tampa/St. Petersburg, Fla., Sacramento, Calif., St. Louis,
Orlando, Fla., Baltimore, Portland, Ore., Indianapolis, San Diego, Hartford,
Conn., Charlotte, N.C., Raleigh/Durham, N.C., Cincinnati; Nashville,
Tenn., Milwaukee, Wis., Columbus, Ohio, Kansas City, Mo., Roanoke, Va.,
Oklahoma City, Albuquerque, N.M., Las Vegas, Memphis, Tenn.; New Orleans,
Jacksonville, Fla., and San Antonio. Ergen praised new DTH rules that
allow for local-into-local service, but he criticized other provisions.
He blasted must-carry rules that go into effect in 2001 and the keeping
of Grade B standards for determining eligibility for distant network
signals. whether a spin-off will be discussed.
DirecTV Inks Nets-New Bird In Service
DirecTV entered into multi-year agreements with NBC and ABC that will allow the DBS company to provide subscribers with local stations owned and operated by the two networks. The NBC deal covers the network's 13 major-market stations. The ABC deal covers 10 of its stations and an agreement to carry Disney/ABC Cable Networks' emerging soap opera channel SoapNet. The carriage-for-carriage deal is reminiscent of how cable finessed broadcasters for retransmission deals. With FOX, NBC and ABC network stations in place, DirecTV has now signed retransmission deals with three of the four major broadcast networks. A deal still needs to be struck with CBS. DirecTV also announced it successfully transferred satellite capacity from its DBS-1 satellite to the new DirecTV 1-R satellite at 101 degrees. The DirecTV 1-R bird was launched in October and operates as one of DirecTV's five high-power satellites. The HS 601HP model, built by Hughes Space and Communications, has 16 high-power Ku-Band transponders. DBS-1, the nation's first satellite dedicated to high-power DBS service, is en route to its new orbital location at 110 degrees, spectrum once owned by U.S. Satellite Broadcasting but acquired by DirecTV during a merger of the two companies. DBS-1 will be used to deliver local channels to select metropolitan markets. The 110-degree orbital slot is shared with EchoStar.
Hughes Stock Jumps On Rumors-Analyst Note
No new developments were reported Monday as a result of the General Motors board meeting that focused on Hughes Electronics, but the whirlwind of rumors involving the auto giant's satellite subsidiary and a bullish analyst report shot the GMH stock through the roof. Hughes closed up more than $5 to $94.75. GM closed up a quarter at $76. Before the market opened Monday, Banc of America Securities analyst Armand Musey raised the firm's 12-month price target on Hughes from $76 to $100. He didn't mention the going-ons at GM involving its Hughes stake. However, he said continued strong subscriber growth at DirecTV could make the stock a winner. "We believe that with the stellar growth prospects of DirecTV, in addition to Hughes' dominant presence in most other satellite businesses, upside still remains in the stock," Musey said. "Hughes is the pre-eminent satellite communications blue-chip company, and should be a core holding for any satellite investor. GMH wasn't the only satellite-related stock seeing big gains. Pegasus shares climbed $10 to $80. EchoStar closed up nearly $8 to $82.38.
BSkyB Seals German Deal
British Sky Broadcasting agreed to pay about $1.5 billion for a 24 percent stake in Germany's KirchPayTV, a crucial deal for the News Corp.-led satellite programmer and its quest to gain a big audience in continental Europe. The deal still requires regulatory approvals. If the alliance clears reviews by Germany and the European Union, it would give Rupert Murdoch's media machine access to the continent's top pay-TV market. The German pay-TV market has 33 million homes, compared to 22 million in Britain. Under the Kirch deal, BSkyB is offering $512 million in cash and 78 million shares worth an estimated $995 million.
ESPN-Baseball Reach Broadcast Accord
ESPN President George Bodenheimer and Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig announced Monday that the two have reached a new, six-year regular-season broadcast agreement. The deal, which sources report is worth $800 million, is the result of a court settlement regarding a two-year-old contract dispute. The conflict arose because ESPN pushed three Sunday night baseball games to ESPN2 in order to air three NFL football games. Major League Baseball felt slighted and pulled those games off of ESPN altogether. The new agreement, which goes into effect next year, calls for a significant increase in the number of annual televised hours ESPN will devote to baseball, including extensive game and studio coverage on ESPN2. Each year from 2000 through 2005, ESPN and ESPN2 will present more than 800 hours of regular-season baseball coverage, up from approximately 500 hours on both networks this year. Other highlights of the deal include a new Sunday afternoon recap/preview show on ESPN2 called "Baseball 2Day," additional presentations of "Baseball Tonight" on ESPN, and full coverage of up to 108 regular-season games a year on the two channels.TECHNOLOGY: Orbcomm Gets More Satellites
- Pegasus Carries Seven More Birds - Orbital Sciences announced Monday that its Pegasus rocket successfully launched seven Orbcomm data communications satellites into low-earth orbit over the weekend. The launch boosted the number of satellites Pegasus has carried up to 43, 31 of which have been for Orbcomm.
- Investment Group Backs ICO - The U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., has granted final approval to a $500 million financing plan for ICO Global Communications, the international mobile communications company. The money will come from a group of international investors led by Teledesic Chairman Craig McCaw Indian media entrepreneur Subhash Chandra.
- American Mobile Develops Lease Program - American Mobile Satellite has developed bundled lease program meant to make wireless data communications affordable for small and mid-sized trucking firms, a market segment that's key for the company and comprises one-third of American Mobile's customer base. The program is being offered through Lease Corporation of America in conjunction with American Mobile's recent launch of the MobileMAX2 data messaging product.
- Xyratex Teams Up With Logic - Xyratex, an Irvine, Calif.,-based developer of OEM solutions for the high-speed networking, digital broadcasting and data storage markets, completed its acquisition of a majority interest in Logic Innovations, a San Diego-based technology and design services company.
- Loral, Akamai Forge Marketing Deal - Loral CyberStar and Akamai Technologies have entered into a joint marketing agreement in which Akamai's FreeFlow servers, which make Internet content available to end-users, will be made available to Loral CyberStar's customer base of Internet Service Providers around the world.