Asia Satellite Telecommunications (AsiaSat) has signed a new lease agreement with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). This will give C-band more capacity on AsiaSat 2 and allow Asiasat to offer the EBU better transmission services of live sports and news events in Asia.

AsiaSat, the continent's leading provider of high-quality satellite services, claims in an official release that AsiaSat 2 has proved to be a very successful satellite gateway between Asia and Europe due to its extensive C-band footprint and the availability of turnaround facilities.

AsiaSat 2, a Lockheed Martin Series 7000 model, carries twenty 36 MHz and four 72 MHz C-band, as well as nine 54 MHz Ku-band linearised transponders. Its C-band footprint covers 53 countries embracing Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Australasia and the C.I.S. AsiaSat 2 also has a high-power Ku beam serving the Greater China region, Korea and Japan.

The EBU groups 70 national broadcasters from 51 countries in the region. It operates the Eurovision and Euroradio networks. It is also responsible for coordinating news and sports programming, besides actively promoting public service broadcasting.

The Union renewed its first lease of a full 36 MHz C-band transponder on AsiaSat 2 six months ago, using it to transmit regular and ad-hoc video contribution feeds between Asia and Europe. EBU had extended its Eurovision Network into Asia by signing the first lease on AsiaSat 2 a few years ago. Leasing additional capacity enables the EBU to strengthen the company's array of services as well as to increase the number of export feeds towards the Asia-Pacific region from Europe and other regions.

EBU's Eurovision Network is fully digital with a total capacity of 38 channels over Europe, six channels over Asia and 11 channels over the Americas. Eurovision Network boasts over 100,000 news items and 8500 hours of sporting and cultural events transmitted last year.