Some seven weeks ago Eutelsat’s W5 craft suffered a major technical failure which ended up with them having to shut down four transponders, and losing a number of channels including EuroNews and a controversial Chinese channel, New Tang Dynasty (NTDTV).
New York-based NTDTV is known to be – at least – sympathetic to the
banned Falun Gong organisation and as such is something of a thorn in
the side of the Chinese authorities. Without doubt NTDTV was
acknowledged as one of the few critical voices going into China.
NTDTV has subsequently blamed Eutelsat for attempting to cosy up to
China in an attempt to win more Chinese business. Muddying the waters
somewhat was the admission by a Eutelsat staffer in China that the
channel had been taken off the air because of political pressure.
Meanwhile over the past seven weeks NTDTV has carried out an impressive
press and public relations exercise targeting Eutelsat, and winning
support from international but largely ill-informed press organisations
such as Reporters Without Borders and other independent NGOs. The
pressure is continuing. Last week NTDTV participated in a Forum in
Sydney, Australia and which featured speakers arguing for more
independent voices going into China.
Adding to the pressure was a statement from the Brussels-based
International Federation of Journalists arguing for Eutelsat to “stop
hiding behind the technical mumbo-jumbo” and to reinstate the signal.
The European Union has also written to Eutelsat asking for an
explanation.
Eutelsat, in a measured response, has repeated that it holds
“absolutely no prejudice against channels broadcast by our satellites
and notably NTDTV which continues to broadcast in Europe” via
Eutelsat’s Hot Bird system, says Eutelsat. “NTDTV has been treated in
every respect in identical fashion to other channels present on the W5
capacity that had to be shut down. The loss of the use of one of the
satellite’s solar panels, requiring the immediate shutdown of four
transponders used principally for Direct-to-Home television
broadcasting which consumes most power, resulted in a loss of signal
over Asia for EuroNews and C-Music as well as NTDTV.”
Eutelsat also responded to reports that capacity on W5 has magically
become freshly available since the incident with the termination of
broadcasts by Radio Free Asia and Voice of America. “These services
were broadcast within the framework of a contract with the American
broadcaster IBB. The termination of this contract, which Eutelsat was
aware of before the W5 incident happened, was naturally taken into
account in managing the consequences of the satellite's power loss. The
end of the IBB contract provides us with margin which is required to
continue operating W5 in orbit in a safe condition, but it does not
make it possible for us to restore any DTH broadcasting service, either
for NTDTV or any other TV channel.”
Eutelsat’s statement continued: “The extent of the problem affecting W5
was explained in person to NTDTV when we received Mr Wang, President of
NTD TV Canada, at our headquarters in Paris on 6 August. We confirmed
to him that the technical anomaly is irreversible as the technical
review completed with Thales Alenia Space (the satellite's
manufacturer) has concluded that there has been a 50% reduction of the
satellite’s power following permanent loss of the use of one of the
satellite’s two solar arrays. We also confirmed to Mr Wang that
Eutelsat operates no other satellite with coverage of Asia but that
there are many satellites operated by other operators that do have
capacity available and that are even able to offer superior coverage of
China than W5. We reminded him that a list of the satellites with
available capacity has been provided to all our customers interested
only in broadcasting their services in Asia, including RRSAT, the
service provider of NTDTV. Other customers affected by the anomaly on
W5 or seeking better coverage of China have already done so.
“We stressed to Mr Wang that we do not understand why Eutelsat is being
pressured to resume broadcasting a channel when it is beyond our
technical means to provide consumer broadcasting services (DTH) for any
TV channel while maintaining safe conditions for the satellite. We are
in contact with the European Commission and hope to meet with them this
week to discuss this issue,” Eutelsat added.
Jean-Paul Brillaud, Eutelsat’s deputy CEO, stressed in an interview
with Agence France Presse, that the [technical] breakdown is
irreversible, and that NTDTV had not considered alternative
transmission solutions suggested by Eutelsat.
So what are the facts here? That Eutelsat suffered the loss of power
back in June is undoubted. That EuroNews and NTDTV lost their carriage
is also correct. However, EuroNews quietly and diligently gained
carriage elsewhere (on AsiaSat 2 at 100.5 deg East). Much the same
options were open to NTDTV, but one has to wonder why (in the words of
one industry insider) “nobody is taking their calls”.
Perhaps NTDTV is simply using the whole unfortunate incident to
protest, happily raising its profile but at the same time creating for
itself a reputation that the station really is too hot to handle. After
all, this is not the first time that NTDTV has used such pressure to
get itself reinstated. It grumbled and complained back in January 2004
when it lost its NSS-6 transmission. It threatened Eutelsat with Court
action back in March 2005 over carriage, and now this latest event.
Eutelsat, not unreasonably, hopes this storm will quickly blow over.
But NTDTV must also understand that in carrying the programming that it
does – much of which is excellent and uncontroversial – it isn’t wise
to shoot your carrier.
I suggest you look more closely at the evidence presented by New Tang Dynasty Television before discrediting them?
They broadcast truthful Television and their programming is great.
What reason would Eutelsat have to shut off NTDTV's broadcast? except to curry favour with the communists?
Why have we heard so little from Eutelsat on this issue? Well its not going to go away until Eutelsat actually faces up to what it has done to over 100 million viewers of NTDTV in China, whom NTDTV's broadcast is the only FREE media to the Chinese people and one of their only windows to life outside China?
You honestly don't know why NTDTV didn't try to get carraige on AsiaSat?
Umm, maybe because it is owned by the People's Republic of China, you know, the same guys that block their website and pressured Eutelsat from putting them back on their bird.
Please be open minded to the fact that NTDTV is truly getting short changed from Eutelsat because of the satellite company getting political pressure from the Chinese Communist Party.
The spirit of NTDTV is to provide truthful and responsible news to the Chinese communities. NTDTV stands firm in its moral dedication to enlighten chinese people to factual information without it being smeared by the CCP mouthpiece's propaganda campaigns that tries to control the people.
NTDTV is a gem of a station (please see for your self, http://ntdtv.com).
I hope Eutelsat sees the importance of this situation and acts accordingly without the evil influence of the CCP.
It is very dangerous for chinese people, who had watched NTD TV via Eutelsat W5, to readjust their dishes to another satellite bcause, in Mainland China, receiving the satellite TV is prohibited by the Chinese authority controlled by Chinese Communist Party. I think that is why NTD TV insists to use W5 as before.
After reading the full transcript of the conversation between an eployee at Eutelsat Beijing office and a person pretending to represent the Propaganda ministry in Beijing, there is no doubt in my mind that Eutelsat is discriminating against NTDTV. Read it and judge for yourself. It is to be found on this web site of Reporters Without Borders: http://www.rsf.org/
article.php3?id_article=27818
Is Eutelsat’s technical explanation trustable? “Eutelsat claims that four of the satellite’s transponders, including C4 and C6, had to be turned off to allow the other 20 to keep going. But Reporters Without Borders has learned that the C6 transponder has been used again for transmission, although reports about the 16 June incident by Eutelsat-Thales Alenia Space (the satellite’s constructor) said this would not be possible. (…) A Eutelsat release on 11 July said that, because of the 16 June incident, it would not be possible to get the four transponders running again.” (RSF release 8/18)
