Some seven weeks ago Eutelsat’s W5 craft suffered a major technical failure which ended up with them having to shut down four transponders, and losing a number of channels including EuroNews and a controversial Chinese channel, New Tang Dynasty (NTDTV).
New York-based NTDTV is known to be – at least – sympathetic to the banned Falun Gong organisation and as such is something of a thorn in the side of the Chinese authorities. Without doubt NTDTV was acknowledged as one of the few critical voices going into China.

NTDTV has subsequently blamed Eutelsat for attempting to cosy up to China in an attempt to win more Chinese business. Muddying the waters somewhat was the admission by a Eutelsat staffer in China that the channel had been taken off the air because of political pressure.

Meanwhile over the past seven weeks NTDTV has carried out an impressive press and public relations exercise targeting Eutelsat, and winning support from international but largely ill-informed press organisations such as Reporters Without Borders and other independent NGOs. The pressure is continuing. Last week NTDTV participated in a Forum in Sydney, Australia and which featured speakers arguing for more independent voices going into China.

Adding to the pressure was a statement from the Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists arguing for Eutelsat to “stop hiding behind the technical mumbo-jumbo” and to reinstate the signal. The European Union has also written to Eutelsat asking for an explanation.

Eutelsat, in a measured response, has repeated that it holds “absolutely no prejudice against channels broadcast by our satellites and notably NTDTV which continues to broadcast in Europe” via Eutelsat’s Hot Bird system, says Eutelsat. “NTDTV has been treated in every respect in identical fashion to other channels present on the W5 capacity that had to be shut down. The loss of the use of one of the satellite’s solar panels, requiring the immediate shutdown of four transponders used principally for Direct-to-Home television broadcasting which consumes most power, resulted in a loss of signal over Asia for EuroNews and C-Music as well as NTDTV.”

Eutelsat also responded to reports that capacity on W5 has magically become freshly available since the incident with the termination of broadcasts by Radio Free Asia and Voice of America. “These services were broadcast within the framework of a contract with the American broadcaster IBB. The termination of this contract, which Eutelsat was aware of before the W5 incident happened, was naturally taken into account in managing the consequences of the satellite's power loss. The end of the IBB contract provides us with margin which is required to continue operating W5 in orbit in a safe condition, but it does not make it possible for us to restore any DTH broadcasting service, either for NTDTV or any other TV channel.”

Eutelsat’s statement continued: “The extent of the problem affecting W5 was explained in person to NTDTV when we received Mr Wang, President of NTD TV Canada, at our headquarters in Paris on 6 August. We confirmed to him that the technical anomaly is irreversible as the technical review completed with Thales Alenia Space (the satellite's manufacturer) has concluded that there has been a 50% reduction of the satellite’s power following permanent loss of the use of one of the satellite’s two solar arrays. We also confirmed to Mr Wang that Eutelsat operates no other satellite with coverage of Asia but that there are many satellites operated by other operators that do have capacity available and that are even able to offer superior coverage of China than W5. We reminded him that a list of the satellites with available capacity has been provided to all our customers interested only in broadcasting their services in Asia, including RRSAT, the service provider of NTDTV. Other customers affected by the anomaly on W5 or seeking better coverage of China have already done so.

“We stressed to Mr Wang that we do not understand why Eutelsat is being pressured to resume broadcasting a channel when it is beyond our technical means to provide consumer broadcasting services (DTH) for any TV channel while maintaining safe conditions for the satellite. We are in contact with the European Commission and hope to meet with them this week to discuss this issue,” Eutelsat added.

Jean-Paul Brillaud, Eutelsat’s deputy CEO, stressed in an interview with Agence France Presse, that the [technical] breakdown is irreversible, and that NTDTV had not considered alternative transmission solutions suggested by Eutelsat.

So what are the facts here That Eutelsat suffered the loss of power back in June is undoubted. That EuroNews and NTDTV lost their carriage is also correct. However, EuroNews quietly and diligently gained carriage elsewhere (on AsiaSat 2 at 100.5 deg East). Much the same options were open to NTDTV, but one has to wonder why (in the words of one industry insider) “nobody is taking their calls”.

Perhaps NTDTV is simply using the whole unfortunate incident to protest, happily raising its profile but at the same time creating for itself a reputation that the station really is too hot to handle. After all, this is not the first time that NTDTV has used such pressure to get itself reinstated. It grumbled and complained back in January 2004 when it lost its NSS-6 transmission. It threatened Eutelsat with Court action back in March 2005 over carriage, and now this latest event.

Eutelsat, not unreasonably, hopes this storm will quickly blow over. But NTDTV must also understand that in carrying the programming that it does – much of which is excellent and uncontroversial – it isn’t wise to shoot your carrier.

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