The introduction of communication satellites by the United
States during the early 1960s led to major changes in both
the domestic and international flow of news. Communication satellites are capable of transmitting different kinds of
news products—including pictures, text, sound, and data.
Their introduction has been especially important for dramatically increasing the volume of news exchanged internationally. Satellite developments since the 1970s have also
resulted in a significant decrease in the cost of international
news gathering and exchange. Thanks largely to the introduction of this new technological innovation, more news is
flowing around the world more cheaply. Although communication satellites are used for all forms of news products,
the most important innovation made possible by satellites
was the global transmission of live television news pictures.
For the first time, viewers around the world could simultaneously experience actual news events live via satellite. The
use of communication satellites for global news gathering
and transmission has thus played a crucial role in the process of globalization allowing the world to become more
interconnected and interdependent.
The immediate incentive for the development of communication satellites was the cold-war inspired space race
between the United States and the Soviet Union following the successful launch by the Soviets of the first earth
orbiting satellite, Sputnik I, in October 1957 and the first
human in space, Yury Gagarin, in April 1961. Communication satellites were particularly important to the United
States because their development could demonstrate to
the world not only the superiority of U. S. political and
economic institutions but also the potential benefits to all
countries of space exploration. Instead of allowing private
companies to launch privately owned communication satellites that would mainly serve wealthy individuals and
businesses in developed countries, government officials in
the United States decided to organize a single global system. President John F. Kennedy signed new legislation,
the Communications Satellite Act of 1962, to create a new
company, Comsat, which played a key role in establishing
the first international system for satellite communications,
Intelsat. The system achieved world-wide coverage in 1969
when geosynchronous satellites were placed into orbit over
the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. A geosynchronous
satellite appears to an observer on the earth to remain at
the same point overhead at all times because it orbits at an
altitude where it moves at the same rate as the earth’s rotation. By the beginning of the 1970s, over sixty countries
belonged to Intelsat, including twenty-eight members operating fifty ground stations.
The first experiments with the transmission of news
events by communication satellites were conducted by the
United States during the early and mid-1960s. One of the
first geosynchronous satellites, Syncom 3, provided continuous coverage of the 1964 Summer Olympics from Tokyo
to the United States. The first major global television news
event broadcast live via satellite by the Intelsat system to
millions of people around the world was the Apollo moon
landing in 1969. Major events in 1972—notably President
Richard Nixon’s visit to China and the attack by Palestinian terrorists at the Olympic Games in Munich, Germany—
were even more important for convincing news executives
in the United States and the American public of the importance of communication satellites for instantaneous news
coverage of major news events. Communication satellites played an important role in bringing the realities of
the Vietnam War to Americans during the late 1960s and
early 1970s. Satellite transmissions from ground stations in
Japan or Thailand of filmed events in Vietnam gave the war
a strong sense of immediacy.
Satellite transmissions of television news by the Intelsat system was limited until the early 1980s. Intelsat was
mainly established to facilitate international telephone traffic. Intelsat’s membership primarily represented government
telecommunication administrations. The rate structure and
global regulatory patterns favored telephone usage. Intelsat charged for short-term usage (per minute). Television
broadcasters could only afford to use the Intelsat system for
special events with guaranteed large audiences.
While the use of communication satellites for international broadcasting remained limited until the 1980s, the
domestic use of communication satellites for broadcasting
in the United States opened up more quickly. A decision
by the Federal Communications Commission in June 1972,
known as the “open-skies policy,” authorized competition
among domestic communication satellite carriers. Unlike
the international system during the 1970s, which was controlled by Intelsat, the domestic system was open to competition between private companies. Western Union, RCA,
and AT&T launched nine communication satellites during the mid and late 1970s. Although these satellites were
mainly used to relay domestic telephone traffic, cable television companies also became important users beginning
in the mid-1970s. Networks were slower to adopt the use
of communication satellites for domestic service; however,
they did begin to take advantage of satellite capabilities,
especially for program syndication. The first U. S. network
to make a major commitment was the Public Broadcasting
System (PBS). It contracted with Western Union for satellite service and initiated a transition from terrestrial relays
in 1978. The success of this transition led other broadcasters to follow PBS’s lead. By the end of 1979, fifty U. S.
television stations were equipped with earth stations able to
receive and make copies of television broadcasts from satellites. By 1981, this number had increased to 250.
The Intelsat system began to adapt to the needs of the
broadcast industry beginning in the early 1980s. Part of
the pressure came Ted Turner when he made plans for
his twenty-four-hour news channel, Cable News Network
(CNN). During 1980, executives at CNN convinced the
Intelsat board of governors to adopt a new rate structure
allowing for the full-time use of satellite channels. Changes
to the cost structure also resulted from pressure from news
agencies such as Visnews, based in the United Kingdom.
Camera crews working for Visnews and other organizations
produced television film packages that were then shipped
to broadcasters around the world using air freight services.
Executives at Visnews recognized the advantage of using
communication satellites to transmit television broadcast packages to multiple locations from a single satellite
uplink. Intelsat costs again were the major barrier. Lobbying during the early 1980s convinced Intelsat and national
telecommunication administrations to introduce a new rate
structure allowing for regular ten- to fifteen-minute satellite transmissions of international TV news packages at a
regular time every day.
A process of liberalization accelerated beginning in
the late 1980s, which has led to a further lowering of rates
for international satellite transmissions. This process has
facilitated the expansion of CNN and other twenty-fourhour news channels serving global markets. Organizations
specializing in the global flow of news footage have also
expanded through the use of communication satellites. By
2000, two agencies, Reuters Television (formerly Visnews)
and Associated Press Television News (APTN), controlled
most of the global video products used by broadcasters
around the world. Although the broadcast networks in the
United States—CBS, ABC, and NBC—as well as U. S.
cable news stations such as CNN used satellite new feeds
from their own foreign correspondents, they also relied on
the services of Reuters Television and APTN.
An additional incentive for the expanded use of communication satellites for television news beginning in the
1980s was the development of new forms of electronic news-gathering (ENG). Broadcasters converted from the
use of film cameras to portable battery-operated electronic
cameras using new videotape technology. The electronic
format meant that pictures could be edited in the field
using portable editing equipment. All the equipment used
by mobile news crews could fit into a small truck. News
crews in the field could then send the footage directly to the
station using small microwave transmitters or by way of a
satellite uplink using portable transmission antennae. The
combination of ENG with satellite news gathering (SNG)
became more common by the late 1980s for television stations in the United States covering regional or national
news events. This development tended to lessen control by
networks of local television stations. Instead of having to
rely on news feeds from networks, local stations could use
their own video news footage collected in the field.
New developments in the miniaturization of SNG during the 1990s also expanded access in the United States to
live international news. The broadcast networks and cable
news channels began to use portable “flyaway” satellite
dishes, which could be disassembled and flown as baggage
accompanying news crews to distant locations. The major
international news event that introduced the potential of
these new innovations to American television viewers was
the 1990–1991 Gulf War. Live broadcasts from Iraq, Israel,
and Saudi Arabia created a sense of immediacy for U. S.
audiences, including over one hundred million viewers during the first night of the war. Correspondents reporting on
the war while under fire, using portable satellite uplinks,
also created a sense of drama unique to live programming
broadcast from highly mobile new crews.
Although the most important news development facilitated by communication satellites has been the global transmission of live television news pictures, the new technology
has also been important for other innovations in news coverage, including most importantly instantaneous access to all
forms of news coverage using the Internet. For both global
television news and news over the Internet, communication satellites play the crucial role providing instantaneous
global coverage. The new capability for immediate access
does have potential negative implications. For example, governments often feel pressured to formulate policy decisions
immediately based on television-influenced public opinion
without carefully evaluating different positions. Also, the
fast pace and high volume of instantaneous news coverage
made possible by communication satellites has interfered
with traditional processes of fact-checking. Instantaneous
news has challenged journalistic conventions, especially
with the expansion of news over the Internet. Finally, communication satellites have played an important role in the
formation of global media conglomerates, mainly based
in the United States, which increasingly control the global
flow of media products.
Further Reading
Butrica, Andrew J, ed. Beyond the Ionosphere: Fifty Years of Satellite Communications. Washington, D.C.: NASA, 1997.
Hachten, William A., and James F. Scotton. The World News
Prism, 6th ed. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 2002.
Higgins, Jonathan. Satellite Newsgathering. Woburn, MA: Focal
Press, 2000.
Inglis, Andrew F. Behind the Tube: A History of Broadcasting
Technology and Business. Boston, MA: Focal Press, 1990.
McNair, Brian. Cultural Chaos: Journalism, News and Power in
a Globalised World. New York: Routledge, 2006.
Pelton, Joseph N., Robert J. Oslund, and Peter Marshall, eds.
Communications Satellites: Global Change Agents. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004.
Slotten, Hugh R. “Satellite Communications, Globalization, and
the Cold War.” Technology and Culture 43, no. 2 (April
2002): 315–350.
Sterling, Christopher H., and John Michael Kittross. Stay Tuned:
A History of American Broadcasting. 3rd edition. Mahway,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002.
Thussu, Daya Kishan. International Communication: Continuity
and Change. London: Arnold, 2000.
Whalen, David. The Origins of Satellite Communications, 1945–
1965. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press,
2002.
Hugh R. Slotten