THE HAGUE, The Netherlands, October 8, 2002 – New Skies Satellites N.V. (AEX, NYSE: NSK), the global satellite communications company, has been selected to support China Central Television’s (CCTV) coverage of the 2002 Asian Games, taking place between September 29 and October 14, with high-power capacity on the NSS-703 satellite.
NSS-703 offers some of the best coverage of the Korean peninsula and China available, and will provide a full-time contribution link between Busan, South Korea and Beijing, China for the transmission of dozens of live sporting events.
“We at CCTV require highly reliable satellite transmissions and comprehensive coverage,” said He Zongjiu, CCTV’s vice president of engineering. “We are confident in New Skies’ satellite resources as well as their technical expertise, which adds tremendous value to this service. In addition to being the largest Asian Games ever, there is tremendous interest in this year’s games in China because of the country’s strong performance since 1978, leading the world in medals for five consecutive games.”
“CCTV is clearly one of the world’s premier broadcasters, so we were delighted at the opportunity to build on our extensive experience in providing contribution links for the broadcast community to offer CCTV a fully integrated service for backhaul of live feeds,” said Rudo Jockin, New Skies’ executive vice president of global sales and marketing. “We look forward to strengthening this relationship and hope to collaborate with CCTV on future events.”
New Skies is providing CCTV with a full 36 MHz transponder on the C-band spot beam of NSS-703, which delivers high-power coverage of Western, Central, Southern and Southeast Asia in addition to China and the Korean Peninsula. The live video feeds will be routed from the venues throughout South Korea back to the International Broadcasting Center (IBC) in Busan. The IBC is digitally linked to Korea Telecom’s teleport gateway where the signals will be uplinked to NSS-703 and transmitted to CCTV’s broadcast facility in Beijing.
The Asian Games first appeared in 1951 in New Delhi, with just 11 countries and 500 athletes competing in six events. This year, nearly 10,000 athletes from 44 countries, including North Korea and Afhganistan, will compete in 38 events, such as badminton, baseball, equestrian, football, Judo, sailing, table tennis and Taekwondo.
About New Skies Satellites
New Skies Satellites (AEX, NYSE: NSK) is one of only four fixed satellite communications companies with truly global satellite coverage, offering video, voice, data and Internet communications services to a range of telecommunications carriers, broadcasters, large corporations and Internet service providers around the world. New Skies has five satellites in geosynchronous orbit and ground facilities around the world. The company also has two spacecraft under construction, which are planned to serve the Americas and Asia from two new orbital locations. In line with its growth strategy, the company has secured certain rights to make use of additional orbital positions, including four serving the Americas. New Skies is headquartered in The Hague, The Netherlands, and has offices in London, Johannesburg, New Delhi, São Paulo, Singapore, Sydney and Washington, D.C. Additional information is available at www.newskies.com.
