- OSN
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Coordinates: 25°5′49″N 55°9′26″E / 25.09694°N 55.15722°E
OSN Type Joint venture between
KIPCO (50% stake) and
Mawarid Holding (50% stake)Industry Telecommunication Founded 2009[1] Headquarters Dubai Media City, Dubai, United Arab Emirates Key people Samir Abdulhadi (Chairman)
David Butorac (CEO)Products Direct broadcast satellite Website osn.com Orbit Showtime Network, now officially branded as OSN, is a subscription television service in the Middle East and North Africa. The platform is owned by Panther Media Group, and the company is registered in DIFC. OSN is a joint venture between the Kuwait-based KIPCO and Saudi Arabia-based Mawarid Holding via Orbit Group.[2] The company was founded through a merger between Orbit Communications Company and Showtime Arabia. The operational and corporate headquarters of the company is located in Dubai Media City in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.[3] OSN broadcasts channels in Arabic, English, and Filipino languages.
Contents
Technical
Gulf DTH F.Z. L.L.C. is the operating company behind the digital pay TV broadcaster, OSN. Its broadcast facilities are based at Dubai Media City in the United Arab Emirates and its uplink teleport station is du Samacom. OSN uses Irdeto Access Conditional Access technology, to encrypt its DTH channels over satellite and the OpenTV interactive platform on its set-top boxes.
- 2-level parental control (Channel & Rating).
- 7-day bilingual electronic program guide.
- 7 radio channels of music & news & entertainment.
- Arabic subtitles & multi-lingual audio on selected channels.
Illegal viewing
Throughout the last couple of years, OSN has suffered from wide spread illegal decoding of its services. Hundreds of thousands of viewers throughout the Arab world used receivers which acquired decoding signals from a remote server over the internet to watch OSN channels. This has, in some countries, grown into a multi-million dollar business for pirates operating what is often referred to as sharing servers. These receivers were mainly referred to as DreamBoxes, however many other variants of the same concept were available. As of 19/12/2010, OSN has successfully managed to end all illegal viewing of its service. This has been accomplished by the use of smart card decoders specific to the receiver itself. Households throughout the Middle East suddenly ceased to view OSN channels through their pirated receivers and the incident has somewhat caused a public outcry.[4]
In Egypt, the merger between Orbit & Showtime never happened during July 2009 due to unexplained reasons from Cable Network Egypt (CNE) which is the distributor of Showtime in Egypt & OSN. As a consequence, on December 19, 2010, all existing Showtime legal subscribers lost all their channels, and all Orbit legal subscribers had their package demoted to the Arabic channels package (Alfa). Afterwards, Showtime legal subscribers were temporarily being able to watch Orbit's (Alfa) package as a way of compensation for a lowered price. Showtime & Orbit subscribers had the option of either suspending their accounts until the merger happens, or continue watching these temporary packages.
Anyone attempted to access the official OSN website from an IP address in Egypt was presented with a special webpage containing a message for Egyptian Orbit Showtime subscribers, indicating to customers that their service will encounter disruption, but that OSN is working to resolve matters to launch OSN in Egypt.[5]
The new packages finally became available in Egypt at the end of March 2011. Showtime & Orbit legal subscribers were able to swap for free their old Orbit decoders and old Showtime cards with either a new Humax HD receiver or a new Opentel SD receiver depending on the subscribed package. These receiver are using Irdeto 3 instead of Betacrypt which is being used in the OSN receivers outside Egypt.
OSN Channel Lineup
- Promotional:
- Subscribe to OSN[6]
- Movies:
- MGM Channel
- OSN Cinema
- OSN Cinema +2
- OSN Movies HD
- OSN Movies HD +2
- OSN Movies Action HD
- OSN Movies Action
- OSN Movies Comedy
- OSN Movies Festival
- OSN Movies Kids
- OSN Premiere
- OSN Premiere +2
- STAR Movies HD
- TCM
- Series:
- BBC Entertainment
- ITV Granada
- OSN Comedy
- OSN Comedy +2
- OSN First HD
- OSN First
- OSN First +2
- STAR World HD
- Lifestyle:
- BBC Lifestyle
- E!
- Fashion TV HD
- Food Network
- Food Network HD
- Style Network
- Music:
- Music Now
- MTV Music
- Trace Urban
- VH1 Europe
- Kids:
- Boomerang
- Cartoon Network
- Disney Channel
- Disney Junior
- Disney XD
- JimJam
- KidsCo
- Factual:
- Animal Planet
- Discovery Channel
- Discovery Science
- Discovery HD Showcase
- Crime & Investigation Network
- History
- Investigation Discovery
- Motorvision HD
- National Geographic Channel HD
- Nat Geo Adventure
- Nat Geo Adventure HD
- Nat Geo WILD
- Nat Geo WILD HD
- Outdoor Channel
- Travel Channel
- News:
- BBC World News
- Bloomberg Television
- CNBC
- CNN International
- Fox News
- France 24
- OSN News
- Sky News International
- Sky News HD
- Sports:
- Extreme Sports Channel
- Fox Sports
- Fox Sports HD
- OSN Sports 1 HD
- OSN Sports 2
- OSN Sports 3
- OSN Sports 4
- Arabic Channels:
- Al Safwa
- Al Yawm
- Fann
- Arabic Series Channel
- Arabic Series Channel +4
- OSN Yahala! HD
- Cinema 1
- Cinema 2
- MBC+ Drama
- ART Aflam 1
- ART Aflam 2
- ART Cinema
- ART Hekayat 1
- ART Hekayat 2
- Pay Per View:
- OSN Box Office 1
- OSN Box Office 2
- OSN Box Office 3
- Filipino Pinoy:
- GMA Pinoy TV
- GMA Life TV
- Pinoy Extreme
- MnL TV
- Kapatid TV5
- AksyonTV International
- On Demand:
- OSN On Demand HD
- High-Definition:[7]
- OSN Movies HD
- OSN Movies HD +2
- OSN Movies Action HD
- OSN On Demand HD
- OSN First HD
- OSN Sports 1 HD
- Star Movies HD
- Star World HD
- Motorvision HD
- National Geographic Channel HD
- Nat Geo Adventure HD
- Nat Geo Wild HD
- Discovery HD Showcase
- Fashion TV HD
- Food Network HD
- FOX Sports HD
- Sky News HD
- Outdoor Channel HD
- OSN Yahala! HD
References
- ^ "Showtime and Orbit merge". 12 July 2009. http://www.digitalproductionme.com/article-1519-showtime-and-orbit-merge/.
- ^ About OSN
- ^ Showtime Arabia Channel Line-up with channel number!
- ^ Ready to give up your Dreambox? OSN battles piracy
- ^ OSN official website
- ^ Subscribe
- ^ OSN Announcement: 11 HD channels exclusively on OSN.
External links
Categories:- Companies established in 2009
- Media companies of the United Arab Emirates
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