The Senate Commerce Committee quickly approved satellite reauthorization legislation (S-2764) Thursday. The bill calls for a study of satellite-TV providers’ financial and satellite capacity limitations. The Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act also includes language that moves up when Dish Network must carry public TV in HD, mirroring legislation that the House Commerce Committee passed in October (CD Oct 16 p3). The satellite legislation and four unrelated bills, including the Local Community Radio Act, were unanimously approved together without discussion.
The Satellite Industry Association was critical of suggestions by the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association and others that it said would “harm current and future satellite operations,” in comments filed Friday with the FCC. The comments were made in response to the commission’s public notice on broadband spectrum allocation. WISPA suggested limits on earth station operations.
Dish Network’s Q3 profit fell by 12 percent from the same quarter last year to $81 million, it said Monday. Its revenue fell 1.5 percent from Q3 2008 to $2.89 billion. But Dish net subscribers grew by 241,000 during the quarter, to 13.85 million.
Satellite video continues to be in high demand despite economic declines around the world, earnings from satellite video providers and operators showed Thursday.
Despite a company-record net increase of 17,000 satellite broadband subscriptions, Hughes Communications reported revenue of $251.4 million in Q3 this year, down 7.5 percent from the same period last year. A 32 percent revenue decrease at the telecom systems division was a major reason for the overall revenue decline, the company said. The company had net income of $15.6 million in the quarter, down from $18.4 million a year earlier.
The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations is expected to cut provisions for an ITAR revamp from a foreign relations bill that passed the House this year, industry executives said. The language on International Traffic in Arms Regulations could be reattached in reconciling the bill with the House version or taken up as a separate bill, said a lobbyist working on the issue. Many in the space industry say ITAR, which restricts the movements and sales of satellites, has caused a decrease in market-share for U.S. satellite and component makers.
The two DBS providers spent far more money on lobbying in the third quarter than a year earlier, analysis of public records shows. Dish Network’s and DirecTV’s combined outlays increased 67 percent.
Prospects for the satellite industry remain strong, several satellite executives said Thursday at the SatCon conference in New York. They said the global recession hasn’t hit satellite makers and service providers as hard as other industries. Video programming, particularly in HD, remains a huge growth engine for the industry and shows no sign of slowing, they said.
NEW YORK -- The satellite industry should concentrate on improving spot-beam technologies and the reuse of spectrum as it seeks to integrate the communications it provides with the global information grid that the military uses for much of its mobile communications, Charles Woodson, the chief information officer of the U.S. Space and Missile Defense Command’s satcom division, said on a SatCon conference panel Wednesday.
Customer loyalty among satellite TV subscribers is on the decline, a J.D. Power & Associates survey on TV service satisfaction released Wednesday found. Still, the direct broadcast satellite providers fared better than several top cable companies. The study measured customer satisfaction for TV service providers and found overall satisfaction has declined to the TV industry’s lowest mark in the last five years.