SES ASTRA, an SES GLOBAL company has announced that the German-French public channel Arte will broadcast for the first time in High Definition (HD) quality in Germany. Arte will show Georges Bizet’s famous opera “Carmen” from the national opera-house in Berlin.

”We are very pleased that our partner Arte has chosen SES ASTRA to broadcast its first HD programme in German”, said Alexander Oudendijk, Chief Commercial Officer of SES ASTRA. “We have played a major role in the creation and the development of HDTV and we will keep on promoting and supporting our partners for the great benefit of the TV viewers. Today, SES ASTRA is the leading delivery platform for HDTV in Europe.”

“We recently succeeded in showing some important HDTV events in France, but it is the first time that Arte provides the German TV viewers with such a high quality programme”, explains Dr. Gottfried Langenstein, Vice-President of Arte. “We are very happy to share this exciting moment with our long-term partner SES ASTRA and we hope to be able to provide more HD programmes to our viewers in the near future”.

About SES ASTRA

The ASTRA Satellite System is the leading Direct-to-Home (DTH) satellite system in Europe, delivering services to some 107 million Direct-to-Home and cable households. The ASTRA satellite fleet currently comprises 13 satellites, transmitting in excess of 1600 analogue and digital television and radio channels as well as multimedia and Internet services. ASTRA's two prime orbital positions for DTH services are 19.2° East and 28.2° East. Professional services such as Direct-to cable (DTC), Satellite Newsgathering (SNG) and Occasional Use are offered from the orbital position of 23.5° East.

SES ASTRA is an SES GLOBAL company (Euronext Paris and Luxembourg Stock Exchange: SESG). SES GLOBAL wholly owns three market-leading satellite operators, SES ASTRA in Europe, SES AMERICOM in the US and New Skies Satellites in regions other than North America and Europe. The Company also holds strategic participations in AsiaSat in Asia, Star One in Latin America, SES Sirius in Europe, Ciel in Canada and Quetzsat in Mexico. Americom Government Services provides network solutions and bandwidth to the US government and its contractors. SES GLOBAL provides outstanding satellite communications solutions via a fleet of 43 satellites across the globe. Additional information on SES GLOBAL is available at: www.ses-global.com