The Middle-Eastern premium DTH operator Orbit has teamed up with Eutelsat’s German visAvision subsidiary for distribution of three of its Arabic premium channels on the Eutelsat KabelKiosk platform. By doing so, it has provided an easy way for European cable operators to offer Arabic channels, which are already available in Europe to satellite subscribers, on their networks.
Orbit’s “Al-Yawn”, “Al-Safwa” and “The Series Channel” will be available on Eutelsat’s Atlantic Bird 2 at 8 degrees West. The bouquet will grow to seven channels over the next few months.
According to Martina Rutenbeck, MD at Eutelsat visAvision GmbH, the service will be available across Europe, to a potential of 3 million Arabic homes. Until now the KabelKiosk primarily offered its services to independent cable operators in Germany and Austria, with some of the 230 distribution partners based in Denmark, Luxembourg and Switzerland.