SES ASTRA, an SES company [Euronext Paris and Luxembourg Stock Exchange: SESG], announced they have signed a new contract for their interactive TV service Blucom for the Arab World. MBC, the free-to-air multi-channel media group in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, will use Blucom for voting, greeting, downloading, and other enhanced TV-applications for its flagship channel MBC1, the news channel Al Arabiya, and the Saudi Arabian radio channel MBC FM. The roll out of the service is expected by the end of October 2007 and is implemented by APS ASTRA Platform Services and its affiliated company 5Cast.
Blucom is an interactive TV-service that synchronizes classic TV-content with additional information in real-time by displaying additional content and value added services on the mobile phones of the viewers. MBC Group, which is based in Dubai, currently operates six digital TV channels as well as two digital radio channels, O3 Productions and Middle East News, and reaches about 60 million households with a market share of around 40 percent—Betzdorf, Luxembourg
In related news, six HDTV channels have now launched on Comcast Media Center’s [CMC] HITS Quantum service aboard SES AMERICOM’s AMC-18 HD-PRIME satellite. The new channels include A&E HD, HGTV HD, Food Network HD, National Geographic Channel HD, Starz HD and Universal HD. In addition to using AMC-18 for carriage of the HDTV networks offered through HITS Quantum, the CMC relies on SES AMERICOM’s 50-state AMC-4 satellite to deliver a high capacity service that operates at 256 QAM digital modulations—Denver, Colorado & Princeton, New Jersey
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