Continental Western Europe , Sicily. In Europe, DBS satellite services are found mainly on
SES Astra and
Eutelsat Hotbird fleets.
Sky Group, owned by
Comcast, operates with his subsidiaries in the
United Kingdom, in the
Republic of Ireland, in
Italy, in
Germany, in Austria and in
Switzerland.
Canal Digitaal and
UPC are the main providers in the
Netherlands and
Central Europe, respectively.
Vivendi's owned
Canal+ is the main provider in
France. The overall market share of DBS satellite services in 2004 was 21.4% of all TV homes, however this highly varies from country to country. For example, in Germany, with many
free-to-air TV-stations, DBS market share is almost 40%, and in Belgium and the Netherlands, it's only about 7%, due to the widespread cable networks with exclusive content.
Portugal In
Portugal,
Hispasat 30W-5 satellite television is received mostly through
MEO and
NOS and the portuguese
free-to-air tuning of
Eutelsat Hot Bird satellites through private
parabolic antennas.
Spain Spain's company
Hispasat operates satellites for free channels and several payment platforms. However, the most common operator
Movistar Plus+, broadcast via
Astra 1KR and lately push their clients to use their own fiber internet network, if it's available.
United Kingdom and Ireland "mini-dish" The first commercial DBS service in the
United Kingdom,
Sky Television, was launched in 1989 and used the newly launched
SES Astra 1A satellite, providing 4 analogue TV channels. The channels and subsequent
VideoCrypt video encryption system used the existing
PAL broadcast standard. This gave Sky a distinct advantage over the winner of the UK state DBS licence,
BSB. In the following year, after many delays,
BSB was launched, broadcasting five channels (
Now,
Galaxy,
The Movie Channel,
The Power Station and
The Sports Channel) in
D-MAC format and using the EuroCypher video encryption system which was based heavily on the General Instruments VideoCipher system used in the US. While the BSB's broadcast standard and system was technologically more advanced than the PAL based Sky system and one of the main selling points of the BSB offering was the Squarial, an expensive flat plate antenna and LNB. Sky's system used conventional cheap dish and LNB technology. The BSB system used an integrated receiver / decoder whereas the Sky system had standalone decoders and integrated receiver decoders. This allowed Sky to market directly to an audience that already had satellite TV systems. The competition between the two companies was fierce and bidding wars over the UK rights to movies. Sky kept costs to a bare minimum, operating from an industrial park in
Isleworth in West London. BSB had expensive offices in London (
Marco Polo House). The two services subsequently merged to form British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) though the new BSkyB was really Sky. The technologically more advanced BSB D-MAC/EuroCypher system was gradually replaced with Sky's
VideoCrypt video encryption system. In 1994 17% of the group was floated on the
London Stock Exchange (with
ADRs listed on the
New York Stock Exchange), and
Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation owns a 35% stake. By 1999, following the launch of several more satellites (at
Astra 19.2°E by SES), the number of channels had increased to around 60 and BSkyB launched the first subscription-based digital television platform in the UK, offering a range of 300 channels broadcast from the
SES Astra satellites at
Astra 28.2°E under the brand name Sky Digital. BSkyB's analogue service was discontinued on 31 December 2001 and all customers have migrated to Sky Digital. In May 2008, a free-to-air satellite service from the BBC and ITV was launched under the brand name
Freesat, carrying a variety of channels, including some content in HD formats.
Comcast, the largest cable TV provider in the US, outbid
21st Century Fox and its backer,
Disney, on 22 September 2018, in an auction for control of
Sky UK. Its shareholders have until 11 October 2018, to accept or reject the offer.
Russian Federation The first Soviet communication satellite, called Molniya (Молния, or "Lightning"), was launched in 1965. By November 1967, the national system of satellite television, called Orbita, was deployed. The Communist party considered propaganda as the very important task, and the only allowed (later two) TV channel of the central government had to be delivered to regions on a huge territory, and, if possible, abroad. The system consisted of three highly
elliptical Molniya satellites, Moscow-based ground uplink facilities and about 20 downlink stations, located in cities and towns of remote regions of
Siberia and the Far East. Each station had a 12-meter receiving
parabolic antenna and transmitters for re-broadcasting TV signal to local householders. However, a large part of Soviet central regions were still not covered by
transponders of Molniya satellites. By 1976, Soviet engineers developed a relatively simple and inexpensive system of satellite television (especially for Central and Northern Siberia). It included
geostationary satellites called Ekran equipped with powerful 300 W
UHF transponders, a broadcasting uplink station and various simple receiving stations located in various towns and villages of Siberian region. The typical receiving station, also called
Ekran, represented itself as a home-use
analog satellite receiver equipped with simple
Yagi-Uda antenna. Later, Ekran satellites were replaced by more advanced Ekran-M series satellites. In 1979 Soviet engineers developed
Moskva (or Moscow) system of broadcasting and delivering of TV signal via satellites. New type of geostationary communication satellites, called
Gorizont, were launched. They were equipped by powerful on-board transponders, so the size of receiving parabolic antennas of downlink stations was reduced to 4 and 2.5 meters (in comparison of early 12-meter dishes of standard orbital downlink stations). By 1989 an improved version of
Moskva system of satellite television has been called ''Moskva Global'naya'' (or Moscow Global). The system included a few
geostationary Gorizont and Express type of communication satellites. TV signal from Moscow Global's satellites could be received in any country of planet except Canada and North-West of the US. Modern Russian satellite broadcasting services based on powerful geostationary buses such as
Gals,
Ekspress,
USP and
Eutelsat which provide a large quantity of free-to-air television channels to millions of householders.
Pay-TV is growing in popularity amongst Russian TV viewers. The
NTV Russia news company, owned by
Gazprom, broadcasts the
NTV Plus package to 560,000 households, reaching over 1.5 million viewers.
Tricolor TV (Russian: Триколор ТВ) the biggest satellite television operator. It broadcasts a pack of TV channels in the European part of Russia and most of Siberian, Ural and Far East regions. Broadcasting in the European part has been held since December 2005 from esv Eutelsat W4. Broadcasting in the Eastern regions began in December 2007. The principal difference between Tricolor TV and other Russian satellite TV operators is a pack of free channels broadcasts by Tricolor TV. There are 12 federal channels including "Pervy", "Rossiya", "NTV", "STS", "Bibigon" and others in the free "Basic" pack. Except these, there are 19 more TV channels for the whole family. The budget pack of satellite channels turned to be very popular among Russian viewers. The number of Tricolor TV's subscribers is the largest in Russia. In December 2009, the audience of Tricolor TV reached 6,000,000 households.
Turkey Turkey's first satellite television channel called
TRT launched
Intelsat satellite in 1987. On 1 March 1989, Turkey's first private TV channel
Star TV (previous Magic Box or Star1) test transmission Eutelsat I F-5 satellite in Germany. In 1990,
Star1 channel terrestrial TV transmitter with receive satellite on Turkey. In 1994,
Türksat 1B first television channel such as Kent Medya, Kanal E, CTV, BTV, Dokuz TV, KTV, HBB, Süper Kanal, Best TV, Medya Teknik Servisler, UBA, Yavuz RTV, Özdil TV or MNG TV. In 1995,
Eutelsat satellite transmitted four Turkish TV channel
TRT int,
atv,
TGRT or
Interstar. In 1996, Turkey's first digital satellite television channel is
Meltem TV.
Türksat 1C first television channel such as TRT 1, TRT 2/GAP, TRT 3, TRT 4, TRT int, TRT int-Avrasya, atv, atv int, Kanal D, Euro D, Show TV, Kanal 6, Kanal 7, Samanyolu TV, HBB, Cine5, Maxi TV / Supersport TV, Flash TV, Prima TV, Genç TV, Eko TV, Number One TV, TV1 Azerbaijan, Sun TV, Mesaj TV, Meltem TV, Discovery Channel Turkey, Nickelodeon Turkey, Süper TV or Cumhuriyet TV. In 2018, Turkey's watches commonly satellite 80 % penetration. Analogue satellite broadcasting has been discontinued TRT since February 2006. Turkey's satellite TV is majority
Türksat satellite over 300+
free-to-air television or radio channel.
Nordic countries The first satellite service specifically set to the Nordic region was
TV3 which launched in 1987. With the launch of
Astra 1A, getting the TV3 channel got easier. The first Nordic-specific satellite,
Tele-X, was launched in 1989. The services directed at Scandinavia were then scattered among several satellites. In 1993, the former BSB satellites were bought by a Swedish and a Norwegian company, respectively. These two satellites were renamed
Thor 1 and
Sirius 1, moved to new positions and started broadcasting services intended for people in the Nordic region. With the launch of additional Thor and Sirius satellites later in the 1990s, Astra and other satellites were abandoned by the Nordic services with almost all Nordic satellite television migrating to the Sirius and Thor satellites. Initially the basic channels were free-to-air. This caused several rights problems since viewers throughout Europe were able to see very much acquired English language programming as well as sports for free on the Nordic channels, although the channels only held broadcasting rights for specific countries. One way of avoiding that was to switch from PAL to the
D2-MAC standard, hardly used anywhere outside the Nordic region. An unencrypted channel could still be seen in all the Nordic satellite homes, so eventually all channels went encrypted (several of them only being available in one country). There are two competing satellite services:
Canal Digital (Norwegian
Telenor) and
Viasat (
Kinnevik). Canal Digital launched in 1997 and was digital from the start, broadcasting from Thor. Kinnevik had been operating an analogue subscription service since the late 1980s, but waited until the year 2000 before launching a digital service. All analogue services from Thor and Sirius will have ceased in 2006, when the three remaining Danish channels go digital-only. The competition between Viasat and Canal Digital has caused some homes in Scandinavia to have to buy two set-top boxes and have two subscriptions to get the full range of channels. Viasat doesn't provide their own channels (TV3, TV3+, ZTV, TV1000 and the Viasat-branded channels) on the Canal Digital platform. Canal Digital does however have exclusive distribution of channels from
SBS Broadcasting,
Discovery,
TV2 Denmark and
Eurosport; for several years the Swedish
SVT and
TV4 channels were also exclusive to Canal Digital. ==Middle East and North Africa==