Dubai, UAE, 4th March 2010.  The Arab States Broadcasting Union (ASBU) is proud to announce that at last night’s prestigious Digital Studio awards evening at The Westin Hotel in Dubai, alongside partners Newtec and Arabsat, it won the coveted award for the “Most Innovative Project of the Year” with its MENOS content exchange network.

The award was a highlight of the Digital Studio Industry Leadership ceremony – now in its sixth year – and Newtec was further honoured when the company’s CTO and one of the company founders, Dirk Breynaert, was named as the recipient of the “Outstanding Industry Contribution Award”. This was given for his work with MENOS and also for, “his key role in driving Broadband over Satellite for consumers,” according to the citation.

Slaheddine Maaoui, Director General of the ASBU said: “This award represents another MENOS milestone for us, the Arab region and the broadcasting industry as a whole. Since its creation, ASBU has always supported leading edge technologies and MENOS is without doubt an outstanding example of what teamwork can achieve.”

MENOS (Multimedia Exchange Network over Satellite), a revolutionary all-IP networking concept used to exchange multimedia content over satellite, allows broadcasters to share video and audio material among scattered sites in a fully automated and cost efficient way. The MENOS system also provides a complete range of tools to facilitate the coordination of tasks and provide additional IP services across the network. Advanced DVB-S2 modulation technology, combined with the statistical multiplexing of the data, voice, television and radio signals, ensures the optimum efficiency of the satellite bandwidth usage.

Khalid Balkheyour, CEO of Arabsat, added: “Our motto of ‘Our world. Your world’ has no better demonstration than in our steadfast support to our MENOS partners. Winning awards like this is a true recognition that our efforts are being recognised”.

“MENOS has achieved high industry acclaim but for me it is the way that all the partners in the project, ASBU, Arabsat and ourselves, have worked together that has made it such a success,” said Serge Van Herck, CEO of Newtec. “When such enthusiasm and commitment – allied to technological innovation – comes together it is always a powerful mix and to be acknowledged by winning such an important award means a great deal to all of us”, Van Herck added.
The awards are organised by Digital Studio, the Middle East’s leading magazine for the TV production, film and broadcast industries.

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About ASBU www.asbu.net

The Arab States Broadcasting Union (ASBU) is a professional, non-profit organisation. It groups all the Arab governmental radio and television corporations. Since 1996, membership has been extended to Arab privately owned radio and television channels. ASBU has also been joined by non Arab, foreign radio and television corporations as Affiliate Members. It holds an outstanding place among international and regional broadcasting unions with which it has strong professional relations.

ASBU has ever accorded a major importance to developing and promoting news and programs exchange between its members and strived hard to implement technical frames of leading edge technologies to support its exchange activities.

ASBU has always been very active also in negotiating and acquiring TV rights for major sport events on behalf of its members. It offers also a wide range of professional services.
ASBU offers also its services to a large number of other Arab and international broadcasters.

For more information please contact:

Arab States Broadcasting Union
Abdelrahim Suleiman
Engineering Director
Tel: +216.71.849000
E-mail: a.suleiman@asbu.net

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ABOUT NEWTEC www.newtec.eu

Newtec is the European market leader in Satellite Communications, offering highly reliable products and solutions including DVB-S2 modulators and modems, Digital TV & Radio Distribution and Exchange networks, IP Broadband Access Networks as well as software solutions for the optimization of Internet traffic to customers worldwide.

With its ambitious policy of re-investment in R&D, Newtec is recognized as a forerunner in several innovative satellite communication technologies, which have been published as industry standards (DVB, DVB-S2, DVB RCS and iSatTV Cenelec pr EN50478).

Established in 1985, and headquartered in Belgium, the company has regional offices located in Stamford (US), Singapore (Singapore), Beijing (China), Dubai (UAE) and São Paulo (Brazil). Newtec’s Tellitec® IP software products for Internet traffic optimization and data communication are engineered in Newtec’s research and development facilities in Berlin (Germany). Newtec's subsidiary TurboConcept in Brest (France), develops Intellectual Property Cores for turbo and LDPC building blocks.

More details about MENOS are available at www.newtec.eu/MENOS.

For more information please contact:

Newtec Cy
Kerstin Roost
Public Relations Director
Tel: +49.30.43095-562
E-mail: kerstin.roost@newtec.eu

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About ARABSAT www.arabsat.com

Founded in 1976 by the 21 member-states of the Arab League, ARABSAT has been serving the growing needs of the Arab world for over 30 years. It carries over 340 TV channels and 160 Radio stations reaching tens of millions of homes in more than 80 countries across the Middle East, Africa, Europe − and way beyond around the world − including an audience of over 164 million viewers in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region alone tuned into Arabsat’s video “hotspot” at 26°East.
Operating a growing fleet of satellites at the 26°East and 30.5°East positions of the geostationary orbit, ARABSAT is the only satellite operator in the MENA region offering the full spectrum of Broadcast, Telecommunications and Broadband services. This capacity will continue to expand with the launch of one new satellite every year from 2009 to 2012, making the ARABSAT satellite fleet the youngest in the region.
For more information, please contact:
Arabsat
Saad al-Tehaif
Public Relations & Media Manager
Tel: +966.1.281-9603
E-mail: saadt@arabsat.com