Is DBS competition in the offing? SES Americom says it is ready to enter market, but first it must persuade FCC to short-space satellites. (Top of the Week).(digital broadcast satellites)(Brief Article)

Broadcasting & Cable, April, 2002 by Kerschbaumer, Ken

SES Americom, owned by Luxembourg-based SES Global, wants to bring competition to the U.S. satellite-television market, and, surprisingly, the existing satellite-TV operators couldn't be happier about it.

Called Americom2Home, the new service would allow content providers--such as AOL Time Warner or News Corp.--to lease space on a satellite to create their own content offerings. For example, News Corp., which has long coveted a satellite-TV service in the U.S., could put together a service akin to its BSkyB and sell it to consumers.

SES Global has a similar service in Europe called SES Astra, which provides 30 million homes a direct-to-home platform for Vivendi's Canal Plus, News Corp.'s BSkyB and others.

But the company has a long way...

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