Poland's TVP Launches Free-To-Air Satellite Platform

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

LUXEMBOURG — SES ASTRA, an SES company (Euronext Paris and Luxembourg Stock Exchange: SESG), announced today that the public Polish television Telewizja Polska SA (TVP) will launch a free-to-air platform on ASTRA. TVP has therefore extended its satellite capacity contracts for the use of two transponders at ASTRA’s main orbital position 19.2 degrees East. TVP has been using this capacity since 2005. TVP is the largest public TV broadcaster in Central and Eastern Europe.

Based on the new contract, TVP will use a spot beam which is available on ASTRA 1KR. This will allow TVP to broadcast all its Polish free-to-air channels in an unencrypted form to the Polish market. The TVP offer on ASTRA will comprise the entire TVP package including TVP 1, TVP 2, TVP INFO, TVP POLONIA, TVP KULTURA, TVP SPORT, TVP HISTORIA and TVP HD. TVP also considers an option for additional pay-TV programmes.

Piotr Farfal, president of Telewizja Polska, said: “The agreement with SES ASTRA will enable millions of Polish customers to access all public Polish television channels with the highest digital quality. This contract is a milestone in the Polish digitalisation.”

Alexander Oudendijk, Chief Commercial Officer of SES ASTRA, says: “We are more than pleased to extend this contract with a strong partner such as TVP. The new agreement underlines his commitment to SES ASTRA and allows us to continue to develop our strategic position in Poland as the largest market in Eastern Europe.”

Broadcasting will be in MPEG-4, the same format as will be used by TVP’s planned digital terrestrial service, so easing the design of dual receivers.