Satellite Firm Targeting Consumers
By Yuki Noguchi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 7, 2006
PanAmSat Holding Corp. is starting a new business that will sell and distribute ethnic programming for television in the United States, a move that the company hopes will pave the way for other new initiatives that get the satellite company into more consumer businesses such as Internet video and mobile phones.
As part of the deal, PanAmSat, which plans to merge with Intelsat Ltd. this year, will distribute content from broadcast channels in Europe and the Middle East through cable, satellite and Internet television operators in the United States. PanAmSat will share revenue from the sale of that content with the international broadcasters.
"It's a good market for us," said Joseph R. Wright Jr., chairman of PanAmSat, noting that there are 50 million non-native-English speakers in the United States and 20 million people who speak neither English nor Spanish. The company has already signed deals to carry a dozen international channels -- though it would not identify them -- and hopes to launch with more than 100 channels.
Ethnic programming is a growth area for some companies that already offer it. EchoStar Communications Corp.'s Dish Network offers about 100 international channels and 30 Spanish-language channels. DirecTV Inc. and GlobeCast World Satellite Television also offer packages of broadcasts from around the world. Cable companies also offer ethnic programming; Cox Communications Inc., for example, offers a package of Latino programming, as well as 12 additional ethnic channels.
PanAmSat, which hopes to sign deals with those companies to expand its offerings, will announce the launch of the new business, Vis-a-TV, today at the annual Satellite 2006 trade show in Washington. The service will be available to consumers by the middle of year.
The announcement is indicative of the satellite industry's attempt to enter the growing consumer-technology business, including mobile phones and Internet video. Satellites were the cutting-edge technology of the 1960s, when international calling was still an expensive and relatively novel service. The technology is widely used for military and oceanic telecommunications and broadcast video transmission, particularly to distribute video feeds over long distances.
"In the future, we're going to see the consumer with a handheld with all the capability [of a computer]," Wright said.
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