PARIS: Reuters, the global information, news and technology group, has signed an agreement with Eutelsat, the worlds fourth largest satellite operator, for distribution of Reuters Video Online and the Reuters Online Report via Eutelsats multimedia platform OPENSKY.

The two services are distributed via Eutelsats W3 satellite that covers the whole of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. They comprise an automatic news service (Reuters Online Report) which downloads automatically every 20 minutes into a subscribers PC, and a video streaming service of news and entertainment content that operates in carousel mode.

Reuters Online Report is now available via three portals in English, French and Italian. It will also be available from November in Arabic and Turkish, says an official release. Provided by Reuters offices in Paris, London, Milan, Cairo and Istanbul, each of these portals edits world and national news so that the information supplied is tailored to the culture of the community it addresses.

Reuters claims that its two services, Reuters Online Report and Reuters Video Online currently serve more than 900 sites throughout the world, reaching an estimated audience of 50 million Internet users. This achievement is equally derived from enriched content, which places heavy emphasis on video, images and graphics. In this context, satellites find their natural place as the best possible means of simultaneously reaching a broad audience, at extremely high bit-rates so that instantaneous downloading of the news services can be achieved in the best possible conditions as well as reception of streamed programmes. Reuters also says that the seamless coverage provided by satellites allows to offer an equal quality of service to all ubscribers irrespective of geographic location, in perfect complement to the ADSL high speed Internet solutions.