In a quest that started four years ago, Liberty Media Corp. finally took control of Sirius XM Radio Inc. on Thursday after it bought additional 50 million common shares in the satellite radio company.

Liberty Media said it received approval from the Federal Communications Commission for the transfer of de jure control of Sirius XM to Liberty.  Liberty now holds about 2 billion common shares and 1.29 billion convertible shares, giving Liberty Media more than 50% stake in Sirius.

Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), which started purely as a military application, has now widened to include all possible users - government agencies, industries, and even individuals. Frost & Sullivan analysis forecasts increasing prominence of Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT) data derived from Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and associated Value Added Services (VAS) in the next 10 to 20 years.

Despite a record-breaking 1.87 million square feet of space for exhibits at the 2013 International Consumer Electronics Show, the real buzz wasn't about hardware -- it was about connectivity, apps and the cloud. New research from Digitas, a digitally led integrated brand agency, and Brandwatch, a social media monitoring and analytics company, analyzed over 330,000 social media mentions to reveal what trends and products coming out of CES really matter to people worldwide.

US satellite TV provider DirecTV added 100,000 net subscribers in the fourth quarter raising its total subscriber base to more than 20 million at the end of 2012. DirecTV's Chief Executive said on Tuesday DirecTV had a "good quarter" and the churn was better than expected. But the increase during the quarter was 25,000 less than the subscriber net gain during the same period last year when it added 125,000 subscribers.

Hughes Network Systems today announced that it has shipped more than 487,000 broadband satellite terminals in 2012, the most ever in one year, bringing its cumulative number of satellite terminals shipped worldwide to more than 3.3 million.

Shakespeare once said that the “past is prologue.”  And the significant events of 2012 are a good portent of things to come in 2013 and beyond.  Here are some of the events from 2012 that will shape and influence coming industry trends (not necessarily in order of significance):

Following the conclusion of the widely applauded GVF Ka Roundtable Assembly 2012: Satellite Service Provision Game-Changer in Action event, which took place in London on 5th & 6th December 2012 with approximately 100 delegates attending, the satellite industry has now called for a further platform to facilitate extended industry and end-user dialog about high-capacity and high-throughput satellite systems, new ground infrastructures, and advanced networking applications.

Amino Communications Chief Technologist Kevin Lingley has looked into his crystal ball to reveal his thoughts about the five most significant developments in the pay-TV market for 2013.

In his latest blog - www.aminocom.com/blog/ -, Kevin predicts:

The World Radiocommunication Conference opened in Geneva today to review and revise the Radio Regulations, the international treaty governing the use of radio-frequency spectrum and satellite orbits. The work of this international treaty-making Conference will be conducted over four weeks until 17 February to address the changes required to the regulation of orbit/spectrum resources in the interest of the users of these scarce resources, with global implications for policy-makers, regulators, the industry as well as end-users.

CABSAT, the leading digital media event in the region, and third largest on the global calendar, is set to be bigger, better and more compelling than ever. The 2013 edition of CABSAT runs from March 12 to 14 at Dubai World Trade Centre and comes at a time of transformational change in the broadcast and media industry in the region. The event boasts a 15% increase in size and is set to welcome leading broadcast and satellite technology companies from around the world.