Sky Italia takes additional tp's on 13E

Analoguesat

SKY ITALIA AND EUTELSAT ANNOUNCE FAR-REACHING
STRATEGIC AGREEMENT


SKY Italia secures long-term capacity at Eutelsat’s HOT BIRD™
neighbourhood for digital services in Italy Milan, Paris 15 September 2005
SKY Italia and Eutelsat today announced that they have executed a strategic multi-transponder agreement that will ensure continuing expansion of channels and services in SKY Italia’s pay-TV platform over the next 20 years. The agreement concerns the ongoing renewal of SKY TV’s existing 16 leases as well as new capacity on 10 transponders at Eutelsat’s HOT BIRD™ video neighbourhood used by SKY Italia to provide digital services throughout Italy.
SKY Italia will take advantage of the new HOT BIRD™ capacity to further enhance its digital direct-to-home platform which already covers 100% of Italian territory. Through the HOT BIRD™ satellites, SKY is the only broadcaster currently offering a wide choice of premium and thematic
channels with true digital interactive services to Italian households. "We are pleased to be extending our association with Eutelsat which will provide dditional satellite capacity to our evergrowing pay-TV digital platform”, said Tom Mockridge, SKY Italia CEO. “This agreement marks an important development in the growth of our pay-TV as it brings us new resources to add hundreds more channels and interactive services for Italian families. From the middle of next year, SKY Italia will also use its HOT BIRD™ capacity to launch High Definition TV, a further revolution in the digital TV landscape".
"Eutelsat has accompanied the emergence of the satellite broadcasting market in Italy from the beginning and is today the leading supplier of satellite capacity in Italy, which is also our largest market", said Giuliano Berretta, Eutelsat CEO. "We are proud to continue to count SKY Italia as an anchor tenant at our HOT BIRD™ video neighbourhood and of their renewed trust. Our
commitment is to ensuring that we provide SKY Italia with the headroom to expand the volume and range of digital entertainment services it provides. This agreement confirms the strong dynamic of the satellite TV business and Eutelsat’s capacity to partner long-term and largescale projects, substantially increasing our backlog."

from www.eutelsat.com