TVNZ Satellite Services Wins TradeNZ Award

TRADE NEW ZEALAND MEDIA RELEASE

Please note: Embargoed to 5PM, Wednesday 20 February, 2002

TVNZ Satellite Services Wins
Trade New Zealand Export Award

Skilled in the live delivery of television sports event and news coverage to destinations around the world, TVNZ Satellite Services has won a Trade New Zealand Export Award. Operating turnover has virtually doubled in the years 1999 to 2001 with an average of 77% in export sales achieved across the period.

(Media are invited to attend the presentation of the TVNZ Satellite Services Export Award by Trade New Zealand board member Peter Mony at 5pm, Wednesday 20 February, TVNZ, 100 Victoria Street West, Auckland. The Export Awards are sponsored by DHL Worldwide Express).

TVNZ Satellite Services, a member of the Television New Zealand Ltd Group, is an ‘occasional use’ satellite carriage provider. Its global satellite delivery network reaches from London across both the Indian and Pacific Oceans and spans territories from London, throughout the Middle East and Africa, across Australasia and Asia to North America.

TVNZ Satellite Services Marketing Director Christine Fenby says it has three main categories of customers. News agencies such as APTN and Reuters are in the business of gathering news from wherever in the world it’s happening and on-selling it to TV broadcasters. Such agencies use the TVNZ Satellite Services network for the live delivery of their news footage.

‘Rights owning’ organisations such as Trans World International (TWI) pay high dollars to buy the rights to top sports events and then on-sell those rights to television broadcasters. TVNZ Satellite Services’ role is to distribute the signal from the event venue to wherever TWI’s customers are located. For example, TVNZ recently delivered the Australian Tennis Open from Melbourne to South Africa, to the UK and Asia including Japan and to several countries in South America.

The third group of customers is the broadcasters themselves, which screen live sport from venues all over the world.

Unlike most occasional use satellite service providers, TVNZ Satellite Services’ background is in television broadcast rather than telecommunications. Ms Fenby says this is a key competitive advantage for the company, noting that its broadcast knowledge enables it to provide added-value service to its customers.

“Our delivery network is built by television broadcast engineers, owned by a television broadcast company and operated by a group of people whose collective knowledge of broadcast television is difficult to match.”

Ms Fenby says TVNZ Satellite Services routinely delivers coverage of some of the world’s most prestigious sporting and news events, including the Sydney 2000 Summer Olympic Games (eight channels simultaneously delivered to 39 territories), the Australian Summer cricket series, Wimbledon, Confederations Cup Soccer (Mexico, Japan and Korea), World Swimming Championships (Japan 2001), the America’s Cup and English Premier League Soccer. Currently, Winter Olympics coverage from Salt Lake City is being delivered globally.

TVNZ Satellite Services’ customer list reads like a who’s-who of sports rights and broadcast television industry players, including BSkyB (UK), the BBC, Fox Sports International, CNNI, ESPN Star Sports, CNBC Asia, Nine Network and WoWow (Japan).

Ms Fenby says the satellite services business began to develop in the late 1980s after TVNZ became a State Owned Enterprise. The broadcaster built its own earth station (located on the roof of the TVNZ television centre in downtown Auckland) and secured satellite capacity so that it could cost-effectively deliver its own live news and sports material. It started offering excess satellite capacity to other broadcasters, and the multi-million dollar business has grown from there.

Trade New Zealand Account Manager Dominic Cavanagh says TVNZ Satellite Services has built an international reputation by its regular delivery of high-profile events.

“Their revenue growth rate has been very good in the last three years and is on target to increase by a further 11% this year, 72% of which will comprise export sales. With new technology developments, network expansion and TVNZ Satellite Services’ position as one of a very few organisations that is a television broadcast operator as well as a satellite carrier, the future looks very secure and promising,” says Mr Cavanagh.

Christine Fenby says South East Asia currently generates 40% of TVNZ Satellite Service’s export earnings, Europe 30% and the balance to the Middle East, Africa, North Asia, the Americas, Australia and the Pacific.

The business has 26 staff, many of which are multi-lingual with international work experience. Ms Fenby says revenue growth in recent times has been boosted by having three people stationed permanently overseas in Bangkok, Sydney and Shanghai and by strong focus on providing outstanding customer service.

For further information contact:

Christine Fenby, Director of Marketing, TVNZ Satellite Services, Tel. 09 916 7711, email cfenby@tvnz.co.nz

Dominic Cavanagh, Trade New Zealand Account Manager, Tel. 09 366 4768, email dominic.cavanagh@tradenz.govt.nz

Released by Aimee McClinchy, Trade NZ Communications, Tel. 09 915 5628, email aimee.mcclinchy@tradenz.govt.nz

About the Trade New Zealand Export Awards:
The Trade New Zealand Export Awards, sponsored by DHL Worldwide Express, recognise outstanding achievement and growth by New Zealand exporters in international markets. Winners become contenders for the Supreme Exporter of the Year Award, announced at the annual dinner in May 2002.

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