Eutelsat drops NTDTV - Technical Problem provides Excuse for a Political Act

On the the Night of the 16/17 June 2008 Eutelsat Satellite W5 suffered a serious technical problem with the power generation sub-system. This required that 4 out of the 24 of the Satellites Transponders were switched off. Obviously the decision to select which transponders were to be taken off line had to be made very quickly and I assumed this used contingency procedures which for the commercial elements were based on Service Level Agreements (SLA) which form part of Contractual Obligations. If these did not provide an answer, then an Operational Manager should have had the authority to make the immediate decision, which could be changed once the situation was fully assessed.

One of the tranpsonders switched off was that supplying the feed for NTDTV (New Tang Dynasty Television) and therefore immediately terminating its broadcasts to China!

This decision was not it appears based an SLA, or an Operations Managers Decision, but was taken by the CEO of Eutelsat and is alleged not to have been based on any Technical, or Contractual requirements, but was a Politically Motivated Decision.

According to RSF (Reporters Without Borders - Reporters Sans Frontieres) the decision to select NTDTV for terminating broadcasts was made by Giuliano Berretta Chairman and CEO of Eutelsat to curry favour with the PRC regime, which has steadfastly sought to shut out all media beyond its censorship control.

The Following is Sourced from RSF and Space Daily
Quote:

According to RSF, a Eutelsat representative in Beijing stated in a recorded conversation:

"It was our company's CEO in France who decided to stop NTDTV's signal.
(...)We could have turned off any of the transponders. (...) It was because we got repeated complaints and reminder from the Chinese government. (...) Two years ago, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television kept saying the same thing over and over: 'Stop that TV station before we begin to talk."

Since the inception of its broadcast on W5 in 2004, NTDTV has become indispensable to a vast number of Chinese viewers. For matters that concern Chinese people's lives, for what actually happened around them and in the outside world, NTDTV has always been among the first to report the events.

Its timely coverage on current events were vital to the Chinese people, such as reporting on the SARS epidemic three weeks before Beijing owned up to the
problem.

It also focused in on government abuses shielded from the Chinese public view, such as the disproportionate number of school children deaths due to the collapse of shoddily constructed school buildings in the Sichuan earthquake, and the truth about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

With the Beijing Olympics mere weeks away, Chinese people's need for uncensored news has never been greater.

Yet at this critical juncture, Mr. Berretta's decision closed the only window of free information to millions of Chinese people. What the PRC regime has not been able to accomplish for years, Mr. Berretta has delivered by the flip of a switch.

In 2005, when Mr. Berretta attempted to cut off NTDTV's broadcast into China,
Wall Street Journal revealed that he sought to use NTDTV as a pawn to establish
a business relationship with the PRC regime.

International outcry and an outpouring of support for information freedom helped reverse that decision. Today Mr. Berretta is again exposed for repeating his attempt with a more subtle excuse.

The European Union's charter that created Eutelsat required the practice of
non-discrimination, equal access, and respect for media pluralism. Eutelsat's
own corporate description states: "For millions of homes, the Group's satellites
are synonymous with openness and exchange." Mr. Berretta's action has put its
international and European commitments in jeopardy.

A regime that fears the freedom of speech is a weak regime. Any corporation
seeking favour from such a regime is sacrificing long-term benefits for short-term gains.

Unquote
So what gains does Giuliano Berretta expect to get from the success of his second attempt to stop NTDTV broadcasting to its audience in China?

Well: Eutelsat and Thales, the French company that made the satellite, are doing more and more business in China. It was Thales that manufactured Zhongxing-9, the satellite that was put in orbit last month to guarantee good coverage of the Olympic Games. Eutelsat has signed a contract with China to use its Long March rocket to launch Eutelsat satellites.

The Wall Street Journal wrote in April: “Eutelsat for years has been trying to find a way to penetrate the Chinese market, and launch contracts are widely seen as one way to help reach that goal.”

Although obliged to respect the principles of equality of access, pluralism and non-discrimination enshrined in article 3 of a convention governing the operations of satellite companies, Eutelsat appears decided it can ignore the convention and operate as censor all in the name of kowtowing to the PRC for commercial gain!

Eutelsat-IGO (currently with a membership of 47 States) and the European Commission (which could for once do something useful) need to be investigating Mr Berretta's handling of this situation!

In the meantime there needs to be a repeat of the international outcry that reversed Mr Berretta's first attempt to censor NTDTV.

As for W5, although the failure occurred in mid-June, the Technical Investigation and attempts to regain full operation of the W5 Satellite have only just been completed. The conclusion us that there is no hope of returning it to full service and that only 20 Transponders will be available for the rest of the satellites life.