astra at 25 content distribution

German PTT minister between 1982- 1992, bluntly. Another commentator summed up the situation: “Astra slipped through a loophole, and got away with it.” But we are ahead of ourselves. While the plan was in place there was still huge opposition from the rest of Europe. Eutelsat's director general at the time publicly claimed that GDL was going to cause "significant economic harm" to Eutelsat, and called upon all signatories of the Eutelsat Charter to boycott GDL, the acronym given to ‘Grand Duchy Luxembourg’ and its new satellite.

In the end it was only Luxembourg’s formal threat of referring the matter the European Court of Justice that finally made Eutelsat abandon this course of action. Eutelsat’s objection was shared by many, not least by French PTT Minister Louis Mexandeau, who declared that his country was not going to allow “Luxembourg’s ‘Coca- Cola satellites’ to undermine our linguistic and cultural identity”. Referring to the fact that the project’s sponsors were largely looking for US investors for the new GDL venture, Mexandeau argued: “If the Americans attempt to test our abilities to accept their challenge then we will answer them.” There were even serious suggestions that any such incoming signals could be ‘jammed’. GDL, as a US-backed financial plan, also died, but the concept survived, thanks to some powerful help.

A new Prime Minister, Jacques Santer, was installed in Luxembourg, and he was every bit as enthusiastic about a satellite as his predecessor, Pierre Werner. Santer was convinced that Luxembourg needed fresh ideas, new technologies, forward looking investment and engagement. “A small country - but a big laboratory,” he said. “I was fascinated by the idea that, from Luxembourg, we could throw up a signal 36,000km and reach tens of millions of people. It was like the eighth wonder of the world.”

On the very day of his formal appointment by the Grand Duke, on Friday 20 July 1984, he held a crisis meeting of ministers at his private home to discuss the issue. “We could have paid off the existing GDL debts of 74 million francs (about Euro19 million) and given up the project. Or we could carry on and create something unprecedented. Questions were raised about the risks for

Luxembourg. But there are times when, as Prime Minister, you stand alone and you have to listen to your own conscience. I had personal belief in the satellite project. Luxembourg is a small country, but I have always been convinced that we have great potential. But to realise that potential, we must be one step ahead of the bigger countries.” One of the earliest and most enthusiastic backers of the SES project was a long-time diplomat and EC Ambassador to the USA in the early 1980s, Count Roland de Kergorlay, who put up 10% of the original $100 million investment for SES. His diplomatic skills also played a crucial role in helping the

Luxembourg government to ‘see off’ French attempts to strangle SES at birth, according to his obituary published in the London Times in 2003.

On 1 March 1985, the Société Européenne des Satellites (SES) was incorporated and started to work out of the often cramped suite of offices near the main Luxembourg railway station. The company had 11 founding shareholders and barely a dozen employees.

Dr. John Tydeman, a former News Corp staffer (and who has since worked on Star TV, Arab Radio & TV and Showtime in the Middle East) was one of the first members of the new venture. “The press, when I joined the project, was very sceptical. There was no satellite, there were no customers. My situation was that I had spent the best part of a year in New York working for Rupert Murdoch on a similar but less ambitious project, so I had to say I did not see the Luxembourg project as being high risk at all. The uncertainty that I saw was the train wreck left after the Coronet element where there were disillusioned shareholders, and a genuine concern as to whether the project would work. In my mind, the concept of DTH television was starting to take off and was by no means a wild concept. Cable systems were being fed by satellite and the technology was changing quite radically and so the notion of ever-smaller dishes and home-based reception was a very real possibility.”

On 24 September 1985, SES ordered its first satellite from manufacturer RCA. In January 1986 SES hired its first director general, the pipe-smoking Swiss, Pierre Meyrat. Meyrat’s concept was firmly NOT the

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Astra 1C - 12 May 1993.

‘build it and they will come’ strategy, but to build the offer by starting from the viewer’s point of view. “I looked at the whole question from the end- consumer’s perspective from the very beginning,” said Meyrat. “The boom actually took place in the television retail shops.” Marcus Bicknell was SES’ first commercial manager. “The biggest challenge of Astra in the early days was that it was a step change in communications and television,” he said. “So whereas people had their three or four broadcast channels, all of a sudden we were proposing the choice of 16 channels and then 32 and then 64 and then the hundreds of channels which we now know. And at the time in 1986, there was the small matter of a lack of capital: we needed 350 million Euros. We had no frequencies, we had no regulatory environment, we had no clients, we had no satellite, we had no programmers, we had no programmes and we had no reception equipment. Otherwise it was totally perfect!”

Jacques Santer: “I was fascinated by the idea that, from Luxembourg, we could throw up a signal 36,000km and reach tens of millions of people. It was like the eighth wonder of the world.”

All that changed on 8 June 1988 when Rupert Murdoch signed a cheque for $80 million, and secured the first four transponders, on a yet to be launched satellite, for News Corp’s first four ‘Sky’ channels. “Astra was made”, Marcus Bicknell said. “That was the turning point.” Astra’s first satellite was launched six months later, on 11 December 1988. In February 2010 SES announced their results for 2009. Revenues of Euro 1.7 billion. A backlog of contracts worth Euro 6.7 billion, and an operating profit of Euro 700 million. Not bad for a project that “never had a chance”. Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48