SES ASTRA Signs Capacity Agreement for Video Delivery to Ukraine via 31.5° East

Monday, December 13th, 2010

KIEV, Ukraine & LUXEMBOURG — SES ASTRA, an SES company (Paris:SESG) (LuxX:SESG), announced today that it has signed an important capacity agreement for video delivery via its 31.5 degrees East orbital position. Through the contract with Ukraine’s state owned Ukrkosmos (Укркосмос), SES ASTRA will immediately get access to all cable head-ends and terrestrial networks, and achieve 100 percent cable-coverage in Ukraine via this orbital position.

Ukrkosmos’ channel portfolio includes state-owned UTR, Kultura and KDRTRK, as well as Sport 1, Sport 2, Malyatko TV and Menu TV. Since UTR and Kultura are subject to must-carry rules, cable operators are obliged to offer the two channels as part of their bouquet. This allows SES ASTRA to immediately gain significant reach in Ukraine.

31.5 degrees East is SES ASTRA’s orbital position for Eastern Europe and the Middle East. It complements SES ASTRA’s very successful 5 degrees East orbital position that already delivers a large variety of channels to Ukraine and allows for further growth in the region.

Norbert Hölzle, Chief Commercial Officer of SES ASTRA, said: “We are delighted about this agreement with Ukrkosmos which demonstrates the strong dynamic in the region. Further to strengthening our long standing relationship with Ukrkosmos and its shareholder, the National Space agency of Ukraine, the agreement shows that we have succeeded in establishing 31.5 degrees East as an important orbital position for the Ukrainian market. We look forward to winning additional customers for this growing orbital position.”

Sergey Kapshtyk, General Director of State Enterprise Ukrkosmos: “The capacity agreement with SES ASTRA will allow us to offer superior signal quality and coverage over Ukraine and optimise the distribution of our customer’s content to terrestrial and cable networks. We are looking forward to continue working extensively with our colleagues from SES ASTRA to improve our offer to customers in Ukraine.”

Reception details

TV-viewers can receive the Ukrkosmos bouquet throughout the country with satellite dishes of 60 centimeters using the following transmission parameters: Satellite name: ASTRA 1G, Orbital position 31.5 degrees East, transponder No. 5.231, reception frequency 12304.50 MHz, horizontal polarization.