SES ASTRA, an SES GLOBAL company (Paris:SESG)
(LuxX:SESG), has announced that the German-French public channel Arte
will broadcast for the first time in High Definition (HD) quality in
Germany. Arte will show Georges Bizet's famous opera "Carmen" from the
national opera-house in Berlin today at 7 pm.
"We are very pleased that our partner Arte has chosen SES ASTRA to
broadcast its first HD programme in German", said Alexander Oudendijk,
Chief Commercial Officer of SES ASTRA. "We have played a major role in
the creation and the development of HDTV and we will keep on promoting
and supporting our partners for the great benefit of the TV viewers.
Today, SES ASTRA is the leading delivery platform for HDTV in Europe."
"We recently succeeded in showing some important HDTV events in
France, but it is the first time that Arte provides the German TV
viewers with such a high quality programme", explains Dr. Gottfried
Langenstein, Vice-President of Arte. "We are very happy to share this
exciting moment with our long-term partner SES ASTRA and we hope to be
able to provide more HD programmes to our viewers in the near future".
About SES ASTRA www.ses-astra.com
The ASTRA Satellite System is the leading Direct-to-Home (DTH)
satellite system in Europe, delivering services to some 107 million
Direct-to-Home and cable households. The ASTRA satellite fleet
currently comprises 13 satellites, transmitting in excess of 1600
analogue and digital television and radio channels as well as
multimedia and Internet services. ASTRA's two prime orbital positions
for DTH services are 19.2(degree) East and 28.2(degree) East.
Professional services such as Direct-to cable (DTC), Satellite
Newsgathering (SNG) and Occasional Use are offered from the orbital
position of 23.5(degree) East.
SES ASTRA is an SES GLOBAL company (Paris:SESG) (LuxX:SESG). SES
GLOBAL wholly owns three market-leading satellite operators, SES ASTRA
in Europe, SES AMERICOM in the US and New Skies Satellites in regions
other than North America and Europe. The Company also holds strategic
participations in AsiaSat in Asia, Star One in Latin America, SES
Sirius in Europe, Ciel in Canada and Quetzsat in Mexico. Americom
Government Services provides network solutions and bandwidth to the US
government and its contractors. SES GLOBAL provides outstanding
satellite communications solutions via a fleet of 43 satellites across
the globe. Additional information on SES GLOBAL is available at:
www.ses-global.com
