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TELE-satellit EUROPE'S SATELLITE MAGAZINE International Satellite Broadcasting News Number 41, Week ending 5 March 1995 By Martyn Williams News Desk : Internet martyn@euro.demon.co.uk or CompuServe 100025,1637 (c) TELE-satellit Magazine OSTANKINO DIRECTOR ASSASSINATED By Laura Belin MOSCOW, RUSSIA (OMRI) -- Popular television journalist and director of Ostankino TV Vladislav Listev, 38, was assassinated outside his apartment building as he came home from work on 1 March, news agencies reported. Listev was appointed director-general of Ostankino in November 1994, when President Boris Yeltsin reorganized Ostankino channel one into Russian Public Television Ostankino. Although the reasons for the killing remain unclear, early speculation points toward financial motives. Ostankino is now 51% state-owned, with a small group of corporations and commercial banks controlling the rest. Alexander Yakovlev, chairman of the board of Ostankino, told Interfax, "Privatizing Ostankino has badly affected someone's economic interests." Yakovlev drew particular attention to Ostankino's decision last week to ban advertising, effective 1 April. Listev is said to have supported the ban, which was announced as a temporary measure until regulations are adopted on ethical standards in advertising. The proposed ban has enormous financial implications for businesses, as Ostankino is the only television network broadcasting throughout the former Soviet Union. A one-minute commercial during prime time now costs about $50,000. During the Gorbachev era, Listev became a symbol of democratic reforms as a host of the popular news show "Vzglyad" (View). In January 1995, he was honored by the Union of Journalists for his more recent work on the interview shows "Tema" (Theme) and "Chas Pik" (Rush Hour). By Peter Collins MOSCOW, RUSSIA (VOA) -- You cannot watch television in Russia today (Thursday) for more than a few minutes without seeing the portrait of a man framed in black. Underneath is a simple caption that says "killed." The picture is of Vladislav Listyev, a 38-year-old broadcaster who was perhaps russia's best-known and most respected television journalist. Police here in Moscow say Mr. Listyev was shot dead Wednesday night by a gunman waiting for him in the stairwell of his apartment building. The killer fired two shots from a gun apparently equipped with a silencer. The police say it appears to have been a murder for hire. As news of Mr. Listyev's death spread across a stunned nation, all of russia's television networks cancelled regular programming and instead broadcast news shows or tributes to Mr. Listyev. dozens of his colleagues appeared to express shock, outrage, and fear. Mr. Listyev had been named recently to head Russia's main television network, "Ostankino." he was appointed after President Boris Yeltsin transformed the government-run channel into a public company. Aside from his new role as head of the Ostankino network, Mr. Listyev was the anchorman of a highly popular television public affairs program called Prime Time. He rose to prominence when former president Mikhail Gorbachev lifted restrictions on Soviet media under the slogan glasnost -- or openness. mr. listyev used the freedom to start telling the truth -- as he saw it -- on television. Speculation over the motive for his assassination includes anger over proposed ban on TV advertising to a power struggle for the network. Many commentators see the brazen murder as an attack on the process of reform in russia. REACTION TO LISTEV'S MURDER By Laura Belin MOSCOW, RUSSIA (OMRI) -- Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, in London for talks with the British government, said he was "deeply shocked" by the murder of Listev, ITAR-TASS reported. He said Listev belonged to "that generation of journalists who not only accepted democratic changes with all their hearts, but did a great deal to ensure reform became a reality." Russian Public Television Chairman Yakovlev described Listev's assassination as "a contract killing and the mafia's doing." His remarks were echoed by Lev Novozhenov, a talk show host for NTV, who said, "there is no longer any doubt that Moscow and Russia are run by the mafia." Russian TV began its evening newscast with a moment of silence in honor of Listev, broken by the presenter asking "Who will be next?" JOURNALISTS REACT WITH SORROW, ANGER TO LISTEV'S MURDER. By Laura Belin MOSCOW, RUSSIA (OMRI) -- Coverage of Listev's assassination dominated the Russian press and television on 2 March. All six Russian television channels broadcast Listev's photo from noon to 7 p.m., the first time Russian programming was so drastically altered since the death of Communist leader Konstantin Chernenko in 1985, Reuters reported. Russian newspapers of nearly every political orientation prominently featured tributes to Listev. A headline in Nezavisimaya gazeta was typical: "Now anything is possible in Russia." ARIANE FLIGHT 71 - DELAYED AGAIN ! FRENCH GUIANA (TS) -- Eutelsat Hot Bird 1 customers will have to wait even longer after another delay in the launch schedule of Ariane flight 71. The delay is just one day which means that the resumption of Ariane flights, grounded since the PanAmSat 3 loss on December 1, will take plaec on March 15th. Reuters reported local radio as saying the revised launch date was necessary to help get the Eutelsat bird into a better orbit. Ariane flight 71 will also carry Brazil's Brasilsat B2. MTV EUROPE SCRAMBLES ON 1st JULY LONDON, ENGLAND (TS) -- MTV will scramble their output on 1st July marking an end to free viewing of one of Europe's oldest satellite channels. An MTV spokeswoman told TELE-satellit this week that cable viewers across Europe should see no change in the way they get their MTV as it will be included in the present packages offered. Satellite viewers who subscribe to the Multichannels or Multichoice pay TV packet will also get the channel included in their subscriptions leaving satellite viewers without subscriptions to the previous two packages as the only ones who are not already catered for. The majority of these will be in Germany who will be able to take out a subscription to MTV only, the London based music channel said. The same date will also see the launch of a digital packet of MTV programming launched on Eutelsat II-F1. It's thought the package will include MTV Europe, VH-1, VH-1 Germany and possibly a regional version of MTV for Germany with mode regional advertising then the MTV Europe stream. SATELLITE OPERATORS GIVE HUGHES THE VOTE OF CONFIDENCE LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA (TS) -- Despite the recent loss of a Hughes HS-601 satellite aboard a Chinese Long March rocket, which the Chinese media have been balming on the satellite, two operators placed orders Hughes built craft this week. One of the companies is Hong Kong based APT Satellite whose Apstar 2 HS-601 satellite was destroyed in the January explosion. The company has contracted Hughes to provide an HS-376 to be named Apstar 1A. That satellite will provide comprable coverage to that of Apstar 1 but also take in the Indian sub-continent. That satellite should be launched within a year, long before the replacement for the lost Apstar 2 is launched in mid 1996. On Thursday Space Communications Corp. of Tokyo and Hughes Space and Communications International Inc. signed an agreement for a new communications and television satellite, Superbird C. The satellite will be based on the HS-601 platform. The new satellite will have 24 active transponders to carry television signals and business-communications services throughout Japan, Southern and Eastern Asia and Hawaii. In addition to two conventional antennas the spacecraft will also feature a steerable spot beam designed and built by Mitsubishi to increase service where needed. DEUTSCHE TELEKOM OPENS UP ACCESS TO INTELSAT BONN, GERMANY (TS) -- Germany's Deutsche Telekom has announced that it is liberalising access to Intelsat and allowing any licensed telecommunications operator in Germany direct access to the satellites. Previously access to the Intelsats was only possible through an Intelsat signatory, Telekom in Germanys case. For almost a year the UK's British Telecom has allowed direct access to Intelsat which has been seen as a success. BUSINESS AS YOU'VE NEVER SEEN IT BEFORE LONDON, ENGLAND (TS) -- European Business News was successfully launched on Monday despite satellite problems that forced it onto backup capacity on Intelsat 601. The delay of Eutelsat's Hot Bird means that the channel could launch to the DTH market as planned but will remain on Intelsat until Hot Bird is in service in April. The collapse of merchant bank Barings provided a busy news day for the launch of the channel which broadcasts for 19 hours a day with plans for 24 hour broadcasting in the near future. EBN is jointly owned and operated by Dow Jones Television and Flextech. MORE SATELLITE NEWS ON TELETEXT By Peter Klanowski ZURICH, SWITZERLAND (TS) -- Now all viewers in Europe can see the satellite news from the teletext service of SRG TV, the Swiss German channel. The satellite news magazine is now available on page 279 and updated Mondays and Fridays. UK CABLE COUNTS BIGGEST YEAR LONDON, ENGLAND (TS) -- The UK cable industry has had one of the best on record according to the ITC. Subscribers on broad-band cable rose by 130,000 in the last quarter to make a total of 4,172,719 broadband homes passed. Of those passed 909,043 were connected, a near 50% rise on the year to 1 January. The number of cable phones installed more than doubled to 717,586 at the beginning of 1995. US C-BAND SALES DROP By Fred de Ferbrache III ELKHART, INDIANA (SDA) -- C-band satellite sales experienced its characteristic January slowdown of 9.2%. During the last four years, satellite sales growth dropped in January. This can be attributed to the spending gap that exists between the economic activity of the Christmas season and purchases made with income tax returns. In 1992 and 1993, sales growth dropped nearly 9% in January. January sales in 1994 dropped nearly 13%. In spite of a second serious dip of over 11% in October, 1994 as a whole experience a 13% increase in sales compared to 1993. TURNER AND TCI MAY BUT OUT TIME WARNER By Fred de Ferbrache III ELKHART, INDIANA (SDA) -- Ted Turner and TCI are negotiating to jointly purchase Time Warner Inc.'s 19.4% stake in Turner Broadcasting. Time Warner has apparently backed away from its insistence in receiving a Turner asset, such as the Cartoon Network, in exchange for the Turner stock. Time Warner's share of Turner is valued at about 1 billion dollars. Ted Turner would like to get Time Warner out of his business life. Unlike Time Warner, TCI has been supportive of Mr. Turner's ambitions to diversify outside cable programming, including his desire to build a broadcast network. BRIEFS - SINGAPORE (TS) -- Disney has been awarded a licence that will allow the channel to not only operate from the country but also uplink their own programming. They are the first channel to get such a licence. - HONG KONG (TS) -- Star TV will launch a new channel on Palapa B2P, the first Star channel that is not on Asiasat 1. The channel will carry Prime Sports and music service Channel V during the day with encrypted Chinese langauge movies in the evening. - USA (SDA) -- Satellite subscribers are finally being noticed in the news. A news article this week on the Dow News Service stated that "The Family Channel has 60 million cable subscribers and 1.9 million additional households that receive it by direct satellite." - USA (SDA) -- General Instrument has licensed its DigiCipher II video compression technology to SGS-Thomson Microelectronics. This enables SGS-Thomson to develop dual-mode video decoder chips capable of processing both DigiCipher II and MPEG-2. - ENGLAND (TS) -- TV Asia has a new name and logo. The channel recently merged with Zee TV. The Zee channel is one of India's most popular and is available on Asiasat 1 alongside Murdoch's Star TV package. - GERMANY (TS) -- New sender Super RTL has a telephone hotline already ! Call 0138-1111. TELE-satellit Magazine This news is from the English language news service of TELE-satellit, a monthly satellite magazine edited in Munich, Germany. It consists of 164 pages, full colour with tables, charts and news with many off-screen photos of the satellite channels plus an informative technical section and Europe's best satellite frequency guide. Subscriptions are available for DM 120, Europe surface mail; DM 144, Europe airmail and DM 192, ROW airmail. Orders for subscriptions and more information should be sent to : TELE-satellit Customer Service, Silheimer Str. 6a, D-89278 Nersingen, Germany, Fax +49-7308-919001 or email 100543.660@compuserve.com Where to find satellite news : TELE-satellit News, English : CompuServe UK Forum (UKFORUM) - Windows Write / ASCII version, library 19 CompuServe European Forum (EURFORUM) - Windows Write version, library 5 CompuServe Deutschland on line (GERLINE) - Windows Write version, library 15 CompuServe Telecommunications Forum (TELECOM) - Windows Write version fax on demand +49-8282-81003 fax on demand +49-2163-81744 fax on demand +49-7308-919009 fax on demand +44-1875-614888 NBC Super Channel - NBC Text page 171 alt.satellite.tv.europe newsgroup on Usenet World Wide Web : http://xan.esrin.esa.it:2602/satellite.html Fidonet SAT.028 Fidonet SATELLITE.FR Fidonet RU.SAT Fidonet SATELLIT_R23.PUB Maus Net : tv.grp America On Line - from the "ham radio" area in the General file library. Anonymous FTP to : ftp.funet.fi /pub/dx/text/satellite/telesatellit CIX Skyguide/telesat conference SAT NET BBS network SweDX BBS, Swedish DX Association. +46-8-53034727 / Fidonet 2:201/339 Short Wave Paradise BBS, online 24 hours a day ! USA 616-383-4979 TELE-satellit News, German : CompuServe Deutschland on line (GERLINE) - ASCII version, library 15 CompuServe Der Spiegel Forum (SPIEGEL) - ASCII version, library 11 fax on demand +49-8282-81003 fax on demand +49-2163-81744 fax on demand +49-7308-919009 SAT 1 Text - page 513 3sat Text - page 279 SAT NET BBS network Other reliable sources of satellite news : • Radio Sweden Mediascan. 1st and 3rd Tuesday, 20 minutes into the English programme via Astra, Shortwave, Mediumwave 1197 kHz and the World Radio Network. Text and audio files of Mediascan can be found in the SCDX directory on ftp.funet.fi • Radio Netherlands Media Network, Thursday, 23 minutes into the English programme via shorwave and The World Radio Network • World Wide Web users can access TS News and the electronic journals above and more information via the European satellite home page, URL http://xan.esrin.esa.it:2602/satellite.html • The ProShow. Every Sunday night starting at 9:00 pm EST on the Omega Radio Network - Galaxy 3, Transponder 17, 5.80 MHz. -- Martyn Williams | Internet : martyn@euro.demon.co.uk | CI$ : 100025,1637 | Nifty : PXQ00623 | GEnie : NB.LON2 | The views above are my own, I think