DirecTV May Delay Bird Launch

[Scott Greczkowski]

DirecTV May Delay Bird Launch
Courtesy of MultichannelNews.COM
DirecTV may delay the launch of one of its two new planned satellites this year, according to the company. Earlier this week, during a fourth-quarter conference call, DirecTV president Chase Carey confirmed that the launch of the company’s first new satellite was still on target, set for this summer. But he suggested that the second planned satellite debut may be pushed back. The company DirecTV plans to use for that launch, Sea Launch, suffered a setback late last month when a $300 million Dutch satellite it was launching exploded at liftoff at sea. DirecTV’s plans to offer more than 100 HDTV services, announced at January’s Consumer Electronics Show, hinge on the deployment of new birds. At the CES, the company said it would launch two satellites this year. click to read more...

 

[ScoBuck]

DirecTV May Delay Bird Launch
Courtesy of MultichannelNews.COM
DirecTV may delay the launch of one of its two new planned satellites this year, according to the company. Earlier this week, during a fourth-quarter conference call, DirecTV president Chase Carey confirmed that the launch of the company’s first new satellite was still on target, set for this summer. But he suggested that the second planned satellite debut may be pushed back. The company DirecTV plans to use for that launch, Sea Launch, suffered a setback late last month when a $300 million Dutch satellite it was launching exploded at liftoff at sea. DirecTV’s plans to offer more than 100 HDTV services, announced at January’s Consumer Electronics Show, hinge on the deployment of new birds. At the CES, the company said it would launch two satellites this year. click to read more...

Chase Carey also said on that conference call that a delay of DIRECTV11 would NOT affect their 2007 plans in any way regarding their HD rollout. Also he said that preliminary inspections show little significant damage to the Sea Launch platform.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Chase said that a few days ago, however this is what MultiChannel News is reporting as of this morning.

I like everyone else hope they get them up safely and soon as you can never have enough HD.

 

[cforrest]

EH, no big surprise, all hinges on Sea-Launch. D10 has capacity for 100 CONUS HD per Carey. But the HD-LIL people that were waiting will be the big losers in this, since that capacity will be used for CONUS HD until D11 goes up, whenever that happens.