Ethiosat launches as Ethiopia’s first dedicated TV platform

Ethiosat has launched the country’s first dedicated TV platform dedicated to the country’s most popular channels.

Ethiosat has been launched as a result of agreements between the Association of Ethiopian Broadcasters (AEB), the Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC), satellite operator SES.

Ethiosat is hosted on SES’s NSS-12 satellite at 57 degrees East and delivers over 30 channels for Ethiopian audiences only, with 12 of those channels already in High Definition (HD) quality.

To access Ethiosat direct-to-home (DTH), Ethiopian TV viewers must have their respective local satellite antenna installer change the position of their antenna. This will allow them to receive the content from SES’s NSS-12 satellite.

Amman Fissehazion, chairman of the AEB, said, “Up until now, the majority of Ethiopia’s content has been broadcast from an orbital location that also supplies content to Middle Eastern and North African countries, which explains the often confusing mix of content. By migrating the most popular Ethiopian TV channels to a new location on SES’s satellite, we’ve created an Ethiopian-only TV offering, that also delivers a variety of channels in HD, a first in Ethiopia.

“We believe consolidating all Ethiopian TV channels and broadcasting them from one orbital position will fuel growth in the Ethiopian media sector, as local networks will now be able to easily expand their audience reach. This will foster healthy and growing advertising markets, which will result in a greater variety of content, and more localised content.”

Ferdinand Kayser, CEO of SES Video said: “SES is supporting every aspect of this launch and providing on-the-ground services to ensure the success of Ethiosat, which includes training local installers to correctly repoint the satellite dishes of each TV household to ensure a seamless migration. Ethiosat is bringing a completely new television experience to Ethiopians. We intend for the reliability and quality of the new platform to attract many new viewers, fuelling a bright future for the Ethiopian media sector.”