QVC will continue to be distributed via the Astra satellite system following a five-year renewal of its agreement with SES.
The shopping channel operates QVC, QVC Beauty, QVC Extra and QVC Style from SES’s 28.2 / 28.5 degrees East satellites.
As part of the agreement, both the QVC and QVC Style channels will be upgraded to high definition (HD). SES will continue to provide ground services to QVC UK, including managed encoding and uplinking services.
“Our broadcast channels are central to our business, so we are happy to continue and expand our longstanding partnership with SES to provide reliable, high-quality broadcast to our customers across the UK and Ireland,” said Simone Borkar, QVC Director of Broadcast Engineering Europe. “Ensuring our customers have an immersive and engaging vCommerce shopping experience is of paramount importance and why we continue working with SES.”
“QVC UK has been an important customer for our video business in Europe for the last 30 years, so we are delighted to extend our partnership for another five years,” adds Deepak Mathur, Executive Vice President of Global Video Sales at SES.
Worldwide, QVC reaches more than 200 million homes via its 12 broadcast networks. It has been available from SES in Europe since the launch of Astra 1B in 1991.