Paris — Globecast, the global solutions provider for media, announces it has been contracted by Euronews, the most-watched international news channel in Europe to bring its new HD channel to viewers across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. The channel’s world-first launch in HD on 1 November from Eutelsat’s HOTBIRD video neighbourhood follows the announcement by Eutelsat and Globecast at IBC 2016 to drive HD growth at Eutelsat’s most popular broadcast location.

Euronews covers world news and broadcasts in SD, 24 hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week in 13 languages: Arabic, English, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish and Ukrainian. Globecast has an ongoing relationship with the channel, distributing the SD variant. The new HD version of Euronews in English is encoded in MPEG-4 DVB S2 in a new HOTBIRD platform designed to host premium international news and information channels.

Didier Mainard, Executive Vice President Sales, Marketing and Communication at Globecast, said: “Globecast and Eutelsat have teamed up to enrich the HOTBIRD orbital position, which is the number one in the world regarding free-to-air channels with a wide DTH footprint including Europe, Middle East and North Africa. Globecast has been working very closely across both technical and commercial angles with Euronews for the past few months to bring the HD variant to viewers. We are very pleased that Euronews has extended its relationship with us.”

François Schmitt, Chief Operating Officer at Euronews: “We bring premium news content to viewers across the HOTBIRD footprint and we have very strong reach in the business sector. We recognise that the time is right for us to launch our HD offering. We are now able to bring premium news HD content to existing viewers, including premium hotels targeting business travellers and high-end tourists from all over the world, hospitality organisations, cable and IPTV operators as well as home viewers.”