During the eclipse of 19 April 2004 equinox, the satellite lost 6 of its total of 108 battery elements, reducing its performance.

It, therefore, took on the mission to continue the transmission of French national analog television channels to: In France, Atlantic Bird 3 enabled Eutelsat to serve 1.6 million households (of nearly 23 million with televisions) who otherwise did not receive a signal at all, or who received a poor or unreliable signal ("snow", echos, interference, fog, repeated storm damage of mountain transmitters).

In the 2007 bill "The future of television", French senators voted for an article requiring national digital TV broadcasters to make their free-to-air channels available to viewers via at least one satellite distributor or channel editor within a maximum period of three months from the date of enactment of the law confirmed by the vote of Deputies.

This law passed through a fixed joint commission of 2 chambers, because the text was amended and adopted permanently.

The Socialist Party (France) (PS) group that had challenged before the Constitutional Council was dismissed on 28 February 2008.

In a report published by the Secretariat of State for Strategic Studies,[6] it was planned to create a 2nd free satellite offer to over 1.5 million households already facing Atlantic Bird 3 without redirecting their existing satellite dish, in addition to the TNTSAT offer managed by the Canal+ Group.