Five continents, five additional years for free-to-air bouquet of Arabic-language channels

IBC 2007 - Amsterdam - 10 September 2007– Leading content management and delivery company GlobeCast and leading satellite operator Arabsat announced at IBC 2007 that they have agreed to extend their cooperation on the worldwide distribution of the Arabsat/ASBU digital bouquet of Arabic-language channels for five additional years, from 2009 to 2014.

Since the launch of the partnership in 2004, GlobeCast, Arabsat and ASBU have expanded the bouquet’s potential viewership and footprint, offering maximum global coverage by attracting new broadcasters and offering new services. Channels worldwide are now able to join the bouquet and viewers on five continents are free to view its community channels, including : Abu Dhabi TV , Abu Dhabi Sports, Al-Iraqiya TV, Al Jazeera, Al Ordoniyah, Jamahirya Satellite Channel, Oman TV Satellite, Qatar TV, Saudi Arabian TV 1, Saudi Arabian TV 2, Sharjah TV, Sudan TV, Syrian Satellite Channel .

As of today, the available services cover the following regions :

North America via WorldTV on Galaxy 25
South America via Hispasat 1C
Africa via NSS 7
Asia via AsiaSat 2

GlobeCast also provides individual DTH channel distribution for selected ASBU member channels to :

Europe via Hot Bird and Astra 1E
Australia via Optus B3 and Intelsat 8

"The continued partnership between GlobeCast, Arabsat and ASBU proves our commitment to bringing international programming to viewers around the world," said GlobeCast president and CEO Christian Pinon, "The renewal of our cooperation for the next five years will help to ensure the success of the bouquet."

Arabsat CEO Eng. Khalid A. Balkheyour ads, “We are looking forward to continue our cooperation with GlobeCast which has set an important precedent in the industry and has proven the effectiveness of bundled programming and one-source global distribution.”

ASBU’s Director General, Salaheddine Maaoui emphasized on the role of the Union for providing comprehensive and consistent services, in partnership with Arabsat and GlobeCast, to its eminent members.

About GlobeCast GlobeCast ( www.globecast.com ), a subsidiary of France Telecom, marks its 10 th anniversary in 2007 as the leading global provider of content management and worldwide transmission services for professional broadcast delivery. The company operates a secure global satellite and fibre network to manage and transport 10 million hours of video and other rich media each year, providing ingest, aggregation, transmission and repurposing of content for delivery to direct-to-home satellite platforms ; cable, IPTV, mobile and broadband headends ; as well as corporate and digital signage networks. GlobeCast’s fleet of SNG trucks deploys globally to support coverage of the biggest news and sporting events each year in SD and HDTV formats. Borders are non-existent when it comes to GlobeCast’s services, thanks to the company’s 12 teleports and technical operations centres as well as its 20 offices in Europe, North and Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Australia.

Press Contacts :
Denis Gomez +33 1 55 95 26 04
Matthew Rosenstein +33 1 55 95 27 20