SES ASTRA Wins First Italian Broadcaster for Direct-to-Home Services on 19.2 Degrees East

LUXEMBOURG--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SES ASTRA, an SES company (Paris:SESG)(LuxX:SESG), announced today that it has won a first broadcaster for Direct-to-Home services in Italy. Italian TV operator Promosat will use capacity on SES ASTRA’s 19.2 degrees East orbital position for the free-to-air transmission of its ABChannel to TV viewers in Italy.

ABChannel provides popular entertainment, including feature films, TV series and documentaries. The channel will help to significantly increase the attractiveness of SES ASTRA’s 19.2 degrees East orbital position, which to date reaches more than 2 million households in Italy.

Ferdinand Kayser, Chief Commercial Officer of SES, said: “We are very pleased to have signed this agreement with Promosat which will help us to further build our reach in Italy. The launch of ABChannel demonstrates the attractiveness of 19.2 degrees East for Italian broadcasters and will help to attract additional customers to our prime orbital position in Italy. We look forward to working with Promosat and hope to win additional customers soon.”

ABChannel can be received with the following parameters:

Satellite: ASTRA 1L
Transponder: 1.037
Frequency: 11023.25
Polarization: H-Pol
Fec: 5/6

About SES ASTRA

SES ASTRA is the leading Direct-to-Home (DTH) satellite system in Europe. The satellite fleet currently comprises 17 satellites which deliver services to more than 135 million households and transmit more than 2,500 television and radio channels. SES ASTRA also provides satellite-based multimedia, internet and telecommunication services to enterprises, governments and their agencies. With more than 200 High Definition (HD) channels, ASTRA is the most important HDTV platform for Europe's leading broadcasters. The orbital positions for SES ASTRA are 19.2 degrees East, 28.2 degrees East, 23.5 degrees East, 5 degrees East and 31.5 degrees East. For further information: www.ses-astra.com.

About SES

SES (Paris:SESG)(LuxX:SESG) wholly owns the market-leading satellite operators SES ASTRA and SES WORLD SKIES, and participations in Ciel in Canada, QuetzSat in Mexico as well as a strategic participation in satellite infrastructure start-up O3b Networks. SES provides outstanding satellite communications solutions via a global fleet of 44 satellites. For further information: www.ses.com