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Mansa Musa was the ruler of the Mali Empire in West Africa. Details recorded here should be sourced; unknown information is left blank.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
 | This article includes a list of general references but lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (October 2013) |
SKY Pacific is a Fiji based pay TV service owned by Digicel (formerly owned by Fiji Television Limited) delivering encrypted signals of 27 channels via direct-to-home (DTH) satellite on C-band to subscribers in Fiji and across the South Pacific. It is headquartered in the capital city of Fiji, Suva City with branch offices in Suva, Lautoka, Nadi and Labasa. On April 1, 2016, Digicel Fiji officially acquired the company.
SKY Pacific currently operates on MPEG-4 platform with its encrypted signals uplinked to Intelsat 19 from its base station in Suva and delivered to households across 13 island countries in the South Pacific including American Samoa, Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati (East), Nauru, New Caledonia, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu. However, the territories of French Polynesia (Tahiti), the Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tuvalu and Kiribati (West) were missed out from reaching after SKY Pacific migrated from Intelsat 18 to Intelsat 19 in June 2013.
In 1994, when Fiji One started permanent broadcasts, plans for a pay-TV service were underway. There were going to be two channels, with the first channel carrying a mix of English and Hindi films, while a second channel was allotted for sports. From the beginning, it was separate from the free-to-air channel.[1] The service got the go-ahead on 30 June 1996, as Sky Fiji.[2][3] Initially, Sky Fiji carried two channels, with a third one being added on 1 August 1999.[4] The three channels were SKY Plus, SKY Entertainment and a relay of Star Sports. SKY Plus aired Cartoon Network in the mornings, feature films (as well as classics sourced from TCM), National Geographic Channel documentaries and sporting events. SKY Entertainment broadcast predominantly Hindi programming sourced from SET Asia and Zee TV and relays of BBC World.[5] Most sports rights were acquired from TVNZ's Pacific Service division, which also served Fiji One.[6]
In April 2004, Fiji TV announced the launch of Sky Pacific, as a 12-channel Direct-To-Home (DTH) satellite service for Fiji and the Pacific, starting 1 July. The move came days after a company from Fushun signed an agreement with the Labasa Town Council to provide a cable television service for Vanua Levu. Sky Fiji's satellite service was initially intended to target remote areas of Fiji, but was later made regional.[7] Managing director of Samoan private radio company Radio Polynesia Maposua Rudolf Keil and former head of Samoan state TV Leota Uelese Petaia have shown their interests in holding the license for a subscription television company to distribute Sky Pacific in Samoa.[8]
On 21 November 2005, Sky Pacific launched in Tonga, represented by the Tonga Broadcasting Commission.[9] In July 2006, the service launched in Samoa under the license of Lau TV subsidiary Sky Samoana Limited.[10]
The relocation of Sky Pacific to Intelsat-19 would have meant the loss of television in Tuvalu, which was not in the beam of the new satellite.[11] The change was done in July 2013, in MPEG-4 format. All MPEG-2 decoders were discontinued from 30 September 2013.[12]
On 30 July 2014, Sky Pacific announced the removal of nine channels (BBC World, Cartoon Network, Discovery, Nat Geo Wild, Fox Crime, Fox Premium, Star Plus and Star World) with new ones (such as France 24, Zee Premier, SET India, WarnerTV, History and Boomerang),[13] which angered subscribers.[14][15] The rationale for the removal of some of the channels was later given to be due to distribution issues:[16]
In mid-August, the company announced that it would reinstate BBC World News, Star Plus and Nat Geo Wild within weeks, due to customer demand, increasing the number of channels to 27.[17] The line-up change was the primary cause of complaint for the service in the first nine months of 2014 alone, 351 out of 1618, per the Consumer Council of Fiji's statistics.[18]
In September 2015, Digicel Fiji decided to buy out Sky Pacific for a mere FJD$5.75m[19] but the Fiji Government refused the buy-out due to Digicel not being owned by a local company. In March 2016, Digicel were finally given a 12-year licence to buy and operate Sky Pacific in Fiji provided that Digicel Fiji is barred from placing local advertisements and local content on Sky Pacific. Local content will only be allowed during natural disasters and to remove all the local content from their channels which meant Sky Pacific had to drop 2 channels, The Pacific Channel and Fiji One which Digicel complied with but they were allowed to add one of their own channels in TVWan to the lineup.[20]
Digicel Fiji finally took control of Sky Pacific on April 1, 2016.[21] As a result of the acquisition, Digicel's TVWan and TVWan Sports were added to the service.[22] These two channels replaced Fiji One and Pacific Channel, receiving criticism from Fijian subscribers and from areas without terrestrial TV coverage until the Walesi DTT platform was implemented.[23] The removal of Fiji One was criticized in a 2018 speech by a National Federation Party member in parliament.[24]
Four new channels were introduced in June 2016, those channels being MTV Live, TVWan Life, Boomerang and Fight Sports, replacing MTV Asia, Boomerang, Fox Family Movies and FX. Discovery Channel was reintroduced in July after a two-year absence. The in-house Super Channel, which was produced when it was under Fiji TV's control, was shut down and its content moved to TVWan and TVWan Action.[25]
On September 11, 2023, Digicel Group filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.[26]
SKY Pacific has distribution deals with agents in several Pacific island countries:
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
SKY Pacific is a Fiji based pay TV service owned by Digicel (formerly owned by Fiji Television Limited) delivering encrypted signals of 27 channels via direct-to-home (DTH) satellite on C-band to subscribers in Fiji and across the South Pacific. It is headquartered in the capital city of Fiji, Suva City with branch offices in Suva, Lautoka, Nadi and Labasa. On April 1, 2016, Digicel Fiji officially acquired the company. SKY Pacific currently operates on MPEG-4 platform with its encrypted signals uplinked to Intelsat 19 from its base station in Suva and delivered to households across 13 island countries in the South Pacific including American Samoa, Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati (East), Nauru, New Caledonia, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu. However, the territories of French Polynesia (Tahiti), the Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tuvalu and Kiribati (West) were missed out from reaching after SKY Pacific migrated from Intelsat 18 to Intelsat 19 in June 2013.
Pacific Broadcasting Services was a company jointly owned by City West Centre Broadcasting Services and BPHCL. Its core business is to deliver satellite subscription television and radio broadcasting services to the Fiji Islands and surrounding markets, focussing on both Hindi and English speaking households and commercial outlets. The company officially opened business in March 2005. The company is located in Garden City, a growing business district of Suva, the capital of Fiji where it runs its local operation in Sales and Marketing, Customer Care Centre, Service and Installation and Finance. Its Technical Infrastructure and engineering support is based in Sydney, Australia. PBS TV currently broadcasts on the Intelsat 701 satellite broadcasting to the Fiji Islands with 13 TV Channels and one radio channel. Channels are beamed from Sydney, Australia from the City West Centre where all PBS TV channels are received and broadcast to the Intelsat 18 satellite to be viewed in Fiji. Pacific Broadcasting Services recently acquired a television broadcasting licence in Fiji to commence broadcasting a nationwide Free To Air channel for Fijian viewers. In June 2008 PBS started to roll out new technology upgrades to their systems, specifically a new CAS system for their pay television platform. PBS closed its operations in Fiji and turned off its satellite transmission in July 2012. Consumer Council of Fiji CEO Premila Kumar said PBS had taken money in advance from subscribers and failed to provide services which was illegal.
Intelsat I (nicknamed Early Bird for the proverb "The early bird catches the worm") was the first commercial communications satellite to be placed in geosynchronous orbit, on April 6, 1965. It was built by the Space and Communications Group of Hughes Aircraft Company (later Hughes Space and Communications Company, and now Boeing Satellite Systems) for COMSAT, which activated it on June 28, 1965. It was based on the Syncom series of satellites that Hughes had previously built for NASA to demonstrate that communications via synchronous-orbit satellite were feasible. Its booster was a Thrust Augmented Delta (Delta D). After a series of maneuvers, it reached its geosynchronous orbital position over the Atlantic Ocean at 28° West longitude, where it was put into service. It helped provide the first live TV coverage of a spacecraft splashdown, that of Gemini 6 in December 1965. Originally slated to operate for 18 months, Early Bird was in active service for 4 years and 4 months, being deactivated in January 1969, although it was briefly activated in June of that year to serve the Apollo 11 flight when the Atlantic Intelsat satellite failed. It was deactivated again in August 1969 and has been inactive since that time (except for a brief reactivation in 1990 to commemorate its 25th launch anniversary), although it remains in orbit. The Early Bird satellite was the first to provide direct and nearly instantaneous contact between Europe and North America, handling television, telephone, and telefacsimile transmissions. It was fairly small, measuring nearly 76 cm × 61 cm (2.5 ft × 2.0 ft) and weighing 34.5 kg (76 lb). Early Bird was one of the satellites used in the then record-breaking broadcast of Our World.
3400 International Drive (also known as Intelsat Headquarters) is an office complex in the North Cleveland Park neighborhood of Washington, D.C., by the Van Ness metro station. Known for its futuristic and high-tech architecture, it was designed by the Australian architect John Andrews and built by Gilbane Building Company as the U.S. headquarters of the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (Intelsat). It opened in two phases, in 1984 and 1988. Intelsat occupied the building until 2014, when the organization moved its national headquarters to Tysons, Virginia. In April 2019, the building was designated as a landmark in the DC Inventory of Historic Sites by the Historic Preservation Review Board. From 2019 to 2022, the building has housed the D.C. location of Whittle School & Studios, a private, for-profit "global school" that served students ages 3–18.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
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