Via Satellite celebrates 30 years this year, which for any publication nowadays is a huge achievement. As a publication, our mantra has always been serving our industry better with great intelligence, features and insights from top executives that have been or are shaping our industry. It has been a pleasure for myself personally to have been a small part of the Via Satellite story in recent years.

For this edition, we have a lot of great content that we are really excited to share with our loyal readers. All of the past Via Satellite editors have provided columns with their memories working on Via and things they remember about the industry while they were with us. One of the centerpiece features for this edition is a story where we highlight 30 key events that shook the satellite industry between 1986 and 2016. This, as you can imagine, was no easy task. We even did an audience survey where we got a number of great suggestions, so we appreciate all those who took part in it — it was certainly a fun article to work on. We also look back at some of the original content in the first edition of Via Satellite to give you an update on what we were wrote about in 1986.

Via Satellite is so much more than a magazine; it is a platform for all kinds of content now. It is a community for those interested in the future of our industry. Every year, Via Satellite also recognizes an executive who has made a huge impact on our industry with our annual Satellite Executive of the Year award, which we hold at our annual SATELLITE Conference & Exhibition. The Award itself is not quite 30 years old as it has been running since 1988; however, we were delighted to have four past winners take part in a round table and assess the industry.

While we wanted to use this edition to celebrate Via Satellite’s past, we also wanted to look to the future. So, we have talked to some of the younger members of our audience on how they see the industry progressing in the future.

Finally, a big thank you to all our readers and sponsors for making Via Satellite what it is today. We really couldn’t do this without your support and, over 30 years, you have helped us create the industry-leading title that it is today. We don’t take this support for granted so thank you, and we hope you enjoy this celebration, as much as we have enjoyed working on it. VS