British Sky Broadcasting

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This article is about the British broadcasting company. For other uses, see Sky (disambiguation).
British Sky Broadcasting
Type Public (LSE: BSY)
Industry Satellite television · Telecommunication · Digital distribution
Founded 1990; British Satellite Broadcasting 1986 and Sky Television 1989
Headquarters Osterley, London, United Kingdom
Area served United Kingdom; England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales
Key people Jeremy Darroch (CEO and Executive Director)

James Murdoch (NED, Chairman)
 David F. DeVoe (NED)
 David Evans (Independent Non-Executive Director)
 Nicholas Ferguson (Senior Independent Non-Executive Director)
 Andrew Griffith (CEO, CFO)
 Andrew Higginson (Independent Non-Executive Director)
 Allan Leighton (Independent Non-Executive Director)
 Tom Mockridge (NED)
 Jacques Nasser (Independent Non-Executive Director)
 Gail Rebuck (Independent Non-Executive Director)
 Daniel Rimer (Independent Non-Executive Director)
 Arthur Siskind (NED)

Lord Wilson of Dinton (Independent Non-Executive Director)
Products Digibox (Sky Digital, Sky+, Sky+ HD · Freesat from Sky)
Sky Active · Sky Anytime, Sky Player · Sky Magazine (Sky Kids magazine, Sky Movies magazine, Sky Sports magazine)
Services Sky Broadband, Sky Talk · Sky Email and Tools · Sky Songs
Revenue ▲£5,359 million (2009)[1]
Operating income ▲£813 million (2009)[2]
Net income ▲£259 million (2009)[2]
Employees 16,000 (2010)[3]
Website www.sky.com

British Sky Broadcasting (commonly abbreviated to BSkyB, and marketed as Sky) is a British satellite broadcasting company that operates Sky Digital, a subscription television service in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

The company's best known product is the Sky Digibox. Sky services include Sky Digital, Sky Broadband, Sky Talk, Sky Active, Sky Anytime, Sky Magazine (Sky Kids magazine, Sky Movies magazine, Sky Sports magazine), Sky Email and Tools, and Sky Songs, an online audio streaming and digital audio store.

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] 1990–1993: Origin

Further information: Sky Television plc and British Satellite Broadcasting
Evolution of UK satellite television

By 1990, Sky Television plc and British Satellite Broadcasting had begun to struggle after making huge losses, and by November 1990, the companies merged 50:50 financially, operating as British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) but marketed as Sky. Marco Polo House was sold and British Satellite Broadcasting's channels where largely scrapped in favour of Sky Television's channels. (Marcopolo I in December 1993 to NSAB of Sweden; and Marcopolo II in July 1992 to Telenor of Norway. Both Sky Television and British Satellite Broadcasting had one HS376 in orbit at the time).

The merge of both companies saved Sky financially; in the beginning, Sky Television had very few major advertisers, acquiring British Satellite Broadcasting's healthier advertising contracts and equipment solved the companies' problems.

[edit] 1991: Service expansion

The Astra satellite network began with the launch of Astra 1A in 1989. Sky Television plc was the first customer of Astra and leased four transponders on Astra 1A ahead of its launch. With the launch of more Astra satellites from 1991 onward, Sky was able to begin expanding its services, (the Astra satellites were all orbiting co-located at 19.2° east so they could be received using the same satellite dish).

[edit] 1998: Move to digital

The launch of the Astra 2A satellite at a new orbital position, 28.2° east, in 1998 (subsequently followed by more Astra satellites as well as Eutelsat's Eurobird 1 at 28.5°E), enabled the company to launch a new all-digital service, Sky Digital, with the potential to carry hundreds of television and radio channels.

Sky does not own any of the satellites it has used since withdrawing services from the Marcopolo craft; the Astra satellites are owned and operated by Astra (and Eurobird 1 by Eutelsat).

[edit] Products and services

[edit] High Definition TV (HDTV)

Main article: Sky+ HD

Sky launched its HDTV service, Sky+ HD, on 22 May 2006. Prior to its launch, Sky claimed that 40,000 people had registered to receive the HD service. In the week before the launch, rumours started to surface that Sky was having supply issues with its Set Top Box (STB) from manufacturer Thomson. On Thursday 18 May 2006, and continuing through the weekend before launch, people were reporting that Sky had either cancelled or rescheduled its installation. Finally, the BBC reported that 17,000 customers had yet to receive the service due to failed deliveries.[4] The event was widely seen as an embarrassment for Sky, who until that point, had been extremely conservative in new service launch schedules. The supply issues were resolved shortly after the initial launch date.

According to figures published by Sky, there are 2,082,000 subscribers to the Sky+ HD service as of 30 December 2009.[3]

[edit] 3D programming

On 28 January 2010, Sky announced that it would begin to broadcast programmes in 3D by April 2010. This action will include new 3D channels, including a Sky Sports 3D and Sky Movies 3D. Sky previously experimented with 3D broadcasting by broadcasting an Arsenal vs Manchester United football game live in 3D in nine pubs situated throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland[5]

[edit] Timeline of Sky events

1982 Super Station Europe begins broadcasting (mainly intended for cable subscribers in Norway and Finland).
1983 Super Station Europe is acquired by Rupert Murdoch.
1984 Super Station Europe is rebrands as Sky Channel.
5 February 1989 Sky Television launches DTH UK services via an Astra satellite.
1990 Sky Television subscribers reaches 1 million.
November 1990 British Sky Broadcasting forms as a result of the merge of Sky Television and British Satellite Broadcasting. Murdoch the majority shareholder through News International, British Satellite Broadcasting partners' Pearson, Reed, Chargeurs and Granada plc shareholdings are held through BSB Holdings Limited (BSBH).
1991 Of British Sky Broadcasting's five channels; Now news programmes are merged with Sky News and Sky Arts created to use Now programming, Galaxy merged with Sky One, The Sports Channel is rebranded to Sky Sports soon after the merger, and launches on Astra. This follows Sky's forced closure of its earlier venture Eurosport due to EU competition concerns. (The channel was later purchased by TF1 and relaunched.) The Movie Channel is retained and also launches on Astra. The Power Station remains broadcasting on Marcopolo until April. Sky One, Sky News and Sky Movies maintained.
July 1992 British Sky Broadcasting sells the former British Satellite Broadcasting Marcopolo II satellite to Telenor.
1992 British Sky Broadcasting signs exclusive live television rights deal with the FA Premier League.
31 December 1992 British Sky Broadcasting ceases transmissions to Marcopolo I satellite following the IBA's withdrawal of the British Satellite Broadcasting franchise. Despite re-advertising the franchise, and attracting a number of expressions of interest, the franchise was not re-awarded, and UK DBS trasmissions from 31 degrees west ended, effectively making Astra 1 the UK's default satellite position.
1 September 1993 Sky Multichannel packages launched. Some formerly free channels begin encrypting their signals.
December 1993 British Sky Broadcasting sells the former British Satellite Broadcasting Marcopolo I satellite to NSAB.
1994 17% of British Sky Broadcasting is floated on the London and New York stock exchanges.
1994 Five more channels launch, including Sky Sports 2.
1995 Six more channels launched including History Channel and Disney Channel.
1995 British Sky Broadcasting enter the FTSE 100 Index.
1996 British Sky Broadcasting signs an extension of its Premier League rights for £670 million.
30 August 1998 First of a new generation of Astra satellites launched, paving way for digital satellite television. Sky Digital launches on 1 October.
1999 Vivendi SA becomes sole shareholder of BSBH, which held 11.8% of British Sky Broadcasting at the time. It also acquired the shareholding of Pathé through merger, bringing its total shareholding to 22% (as of 2001). British Sky Broadcasting Chairman, Jérôme Seydoux, forced to resign due to sale of Pathé's interest; Murdoch takes Chairmanship to prevent Vivendi acquiring it (as it would be entitled to).
2001 Sky signs 5 millionth subscriber. Analogue service is discontinued.
2001 Sky+ introduced: A set top box/digital video recorder hybrid.
December 2001 Vivendi Universal sells part of its shareholding comprising 8% of the company, followed by the remaining 14% in May 2002.
2002 British Sky Broadcasting takes an equal share of Freeview, in partnership with the BBC and Crown Castle (now part of National Grid).
2003 James Murdoch elected as CEO, replacing Tony Ball.
2003 Sky subscribers reach 7.5 million.
2003 British Sky Broadcasting acquires the television series 24 from Fox which was previously shown on the BBC.
1 November 2004 ITV plc takes full control of British Sky Broadcasting. Plus, one of GSB's channels, was closed down and replaced with ITV3.
2005 British Sky Broadcasting purchase network provider Easynet for £211m ($373.1m).[6]
2005 Sky launches Sky by Broadband, a service available to existing movie and sports service subscribers that allows them to download movies and sports clips direct to their home computer. The service is made available free of charge.
2006 Sky HD launches on 22 May, with a line-up of 10 high definition channels.
2006 British Sky Broadcasting acquires Mykindaplace.com to expand its internet presence.
2006 British Sky Broadcasting acquires Aura Sports Ltd to expand its internet media sales presence.
2006 British Sky Broadcasting achieves CarbonNeutral status.[7]
2006 British Sky Broadcasting launches and allows pre-registering of its new broadband service.
2006 British Sky Broadcasting is listed as one of the applicants for the licence to manage Ireland's digital terrestrial television network.
2006 British Sky Broadcasting acquires Season 3 and 4 of Lost in a multi-million pound deal with Buena Vista International Television (previous series were shown on Channel 4).
2006 British Sky Broadcasting controversially acquires 17.9% stake in ITV, Britain's largest free-to-air commercial broadcaster, blocking NTL's proposal.
2006 British Sky Broadcasting rebrands VoD services, such as Sky By Broadband, as Sky Anytime, adding US imports to on-demand content.
2007 British Sky Broadcasting announces plans to launch pay channels on the digital terrestrial platform.[8]
2007 Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Alistair Darling asks media regulator Ofcom to investigate British Sky Broadcasting's purchase of a stake in ITV plc.[9]
2007 British Sky Broadcasting's increased price demands causes Virgin Media not to renew the contract to provide British Sky Broadcasting's basic channels (effective from 1 March 2007) after negotiations falls through.[10]
2007 British Sky Broadcasting acquire electronics manufacturer Amstrad for a reported £133 million.[11]
29 October 2007 Sky Broadband reach 1 million customer mark.[12]
29 October 2007 British Sky Broadcasting offer to give up part of their ITV voting rights after a ruling from the Competition Commission.[13]
10 November 2008 British Sky Broadcasting announces that they will offer Satellite TV channels to be broadcast over the internet. No satellite receiver needed.[14]
17 February 2009 British Sky Broadcasting announces that they will be replacing over 90,000 Sky+HD boxes due to a technical fault. Boxes will be replaced for free and customers will receive three months of HD services, free of charge. British Sky Broadcasting have never confirmed the official reason for the recall, however have stated that the recall was not due to a safety issue. It is believed that there was a problem with the copyright software/DRM, although this has never been proven.[15]
19 October 2009 British Sky Broadcasting unveils the Sky Songs music subscription service. For £6.49/month users can download 10 mp3s, and get unlimited streaming of over 4 million tracks. For £7.49/month, users get an additional 5 mp3s/month (a total of 15 tracks per month) plus the streaming service.[16]
26 January 2010 British Sky Broadcasting announces it expects to receive £200m damages from HP-EDS after winning a court case against HP-EDS over a 2,000 contract to build a customer relationship management system. HP-EDS said it would appeal the verdict [17]
28 January 2010 British Sky Broadcasting reveals that the Sky 3D channel will broadcast in April. British Sky Broadcasting also standardised the Sky+HD box to become the only box they sell, and announced the release of a 1 terabyte Sky HD box with the capacity to record up 240 hours of HD programming.[18]

[edit] Culture

[edit] Competition

The Ofcom Consumer Panel complained that Sky plans to operate pay TV services on Freeview was "generating serious consumer detriment"[19] and the National Consumer Council call Sky's plan "bad news for consumers,"[20] combined with representations from BT, Setanta, Top Up TV, and Virgin Media has caused Ofcom to launch an investigation into the "features of the [UK pay TV] market, including control over content, ownership of distribution platforms, retail subscriber bases and vertical integration."[21]

[edit] Virgin Media

At present the other major pay-TV operator in the United Kingdom is the service provider Virgin Media (Rebranded in 2007 from NTL:Telewest). Virgin Media's cable network was also formed by numerous mergers and acquisitions over the last decade, with different cable companies having used different types of network and technology in their areas.

Virgin Media currently includes Virgin Media Television, previously the content arm of Telewest known as Flextech Television, which owns several channels, including the Sky1's direct rival Virgin1 and a 50% stake in the UKTV network. Virgin is understood to be seeking to sell this business, and as at May 29, 2009, BSkyB is understood to have made the largest bid at auction.[22]

Like Sky, Virgin Media offers a high-definition television (HDTV) capable set top box, although from 30 November 2006 until 30 July 2009 it only carried one linear HD channel, BBC HD, after the conclusion of the ITV HD trial. Virgin has claimed that other HD channels were "locked up" or otherwise withheld from their platform[23], although Virgin did in fact have an option to carry Channel 4 HD in the future[24][25]. Nonetheless, the linear channels were not offered, Virgin instead concentrating on its Video On Demand service[26] to carry a modest selection of HD content.[27] Virgin has nevertheless made a number of statements[23][28][29] over the years, suggesting that more linear HD channels are on the way.

In Q3 2009 Virgin announced that it was making more linear HD channels available on its platform, including FX HD, MTVN HD, Channel 4 HD, and National Geographic HD. As expected, Living HD followed shortly.

In 2007, BSkyB and Virgin Media became involved in a dispute over the carriage of Sky channels on cable TV. The failure to renew the existing carriage agreements negotiated with NTL and Telewest resulted in Virgin removing the basic channels from the network on 1 March 2007. Virgin claimed that Sky had substantially increased the asking price for the channels, a claim which Sky denied, on the basis that their new deal offered "substantially more value" by including HD channels and Video On Demand content which was not previously carried by cable.[30]

In response, Sky ran a number of TV, radio and print advertisements claiming that Virgin media 'doubted the value' of the channels concerned, at first urging Virgin customers to call their cable operator to show their support for Sky, but later urging Virgin customers to migrate to Sky to continue receiving the channels. The broadcasting regulator Ofcom subsequently found these commercials in breach of their code.[31]

The availability (at an extra charge) of Sky's premium sport and movie services was not effected by the dispute. This impasse continued for twenty-one months, with both companies initiating High Court proceedings.[32] Amongst Virgin's claims to the court[33] (denied by Sky)[34] were that Sky had unfairly reduced the amount which it paid to VMTV for the carriage of Virgin's own channels on satellite.

Eventually, on 4 November 2008 it was announced that an agreement had been struck for Sky's Basic channels – including Sky1, Sky2, Sky3, Sky News, Sky Sports News, Sky Arts 1, Sky Arts 2, Sky Real Lives and Sky Real Lives 2 to return to Virgin Media from 13 November 2008 until 12 June 2011. In exchange will be provided continued carriage of Virgin Media Television's channels – Living, Livingit, Bravo, Bravo +1, Trouble, Challenge and Virgin1 for the same period.[35]

The agreements include fixed annual carriage fees of £30m for the channels with both channel suppliers able to secure additional capped payments if their channels meet certain performance-related targets. Currently there is no indication as to whether the new deal includes the additional Video On Demand and High Definition content which had previously been offered by Sky. As part of the agreements, both Sky and Virgin Media agreed to terminate all High Court proceedings against each other relating to the carriage of their respective basic channels.[36]

[edit] Television over ADSL services

Sky is facing increased competition from telecommunications providers delivering pay television services over existing telephone lines using ADSL. Such providers are potentially able to offer "triple-play" or "quad-play" packages combining land-line telephone, broadband Internet, mobile telephone and pay television services.

In the final quarter of 2006, BT, the UK's biggest Telephone company, launched BT Vision. The BT Vision set-top box, provides true Video on Demand (VoD) over BT's telephone lines using ADSL. The set-top-box complements the VoD component by providing access to the Freeview digital terrestrial television service. TalkTalk TV also offers an IPTV service with many channels, including Sky's channels, delivered to a set top box over ADSL.

To compete with these providers, in October 2005, BSkyB bought the broadband Internet Service Provider Easynet for £211 million. This acquisition has allowed BSkyB to start offering its "Sky Anytime on PC" service as well as a "triple play" package combining satellite television, land-line telephone and Broadband service. Sky also offers some streaming live TV channels to a computer using Microsoft's Silverlight.

[edit] Digital Terrestrial Television

BSkyB initially faced competition from the ONdigital digital terrestrial television service (later renamed ITV Digital). ITV Digital failed for numerous reasons, including, but not limited to numerous administrative and technical failures, nervous investors after a large down-turn in the advertising market and the dot com crash, and BSkyB's aggressive marketing and domination of premium sporting rights.

Sky was more receptive to ITV Digital's free-to-air replacement, Freeview, in which it holds an equal stake with the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and National Grid Wireless. Prior to October 2005, three BSkyB channels were available on this platform: Sky News, Sky Three, and Sky Sports News. Initially BSkyB provided Sky Travel to the service. However, this was replaced by Sky Three on 31 October 2005, allowing BSkyB to air its exclusive licensed content with delays of between 12–18 months from their original air dates on Sky One.

Terrestrial television companies currently have limited bandwidth. This means that, at present, there is little or no option to offer HD services, until after the final analogue television services are switched off in 2012 freeing up substantial bandwidth.

In a response to the push towards Free to Air services such as Freesat and Freeview, BSkyB has marketed its own free to view offering (Freesat from Sky).

On 8 February 2007, Sky announced its intention to replace its three free-to-air digital terrestrial channels with four subscription channels. It was proposed that these channels would offer a range of content from the Sky portfolio including sport (including English Premiership Football), movies, entertainment and news.[37] The announcement came a day after Setanta Sports confirmed that it would launch in March as a subscription service on the digital terrestrial platform, and on the same day that NTL's services rebranded as Virgin Media. However, industry sources believe Sky will be forced to shelve plans to withdraw its channels from Freeview and replace them with subscription channels, due to possible lost advertising revenue.[38]

[edit] Stake in ITV plc

ITV plc has been the subject of a flurry of rumoured take-over and merger bids since it was formed. For example, on 9 November 2006, NTL announced that it had approached ITV plc about a proposed merger [39][40]. The merger was effectively blocked by BSkyB on 17 November 2006 when it controversially bought a 17.9% stake in ITV plc for £940 million [41], a move that attracted anger from NTL shareholder Richard Branson[42] and an investigation from media and telecoms regulator Ofcom[43]. On 6 December 2006, NTL announced that it had complained to the Office of Fair Trading about BSkyB's move. NTL stated that it had withdrawn its attempt to buy ITV plc, citing that it did not believe that there was any possibility to make a deal on favourable terms[44]. At the same time as the NTL bid, RTL, the owner of Five, was also rumoured to be preparing a bid for ITV plc,[45] with the possibility of a stock-swap with BSkyB. The plan would see RTL acquiring BSkyB's stake in ITV plc (with the aim of further acquisitions of shares in the future) in exchange for BSkyB taking full control of Five. However, no move from RTL has yet materialised so far.

[edit] Corporation

[edit] Headquarters

BSkyB's main headquarters are in Osterley, London. Sky originated material is uplinked to the satellite from BSB's original earth station at Chilworth, outside Southampton, and from the BT owned Madley Communications Centre and London Teleport earth stations.

The largest concentration of Sky staff in the UK is in Scotland; the main areas being in Livingston and Dunfermline. There is also Uddingston and Shepton Mallet. These house Sky's contact centres as well as the IT departments, Finance departments and Field Operations. Other contact centres are in Yorkshire, Lancashire and Glasgow. There is also a contact centre dedicated to customer upgrades in Cardiff, though this is outsourced to Conduit.[46]

[edit] Management

Total BSkyB viewing figures 1995-2008

Rupert Murdoch's News International (a wholly owned subsidiary of News Corporation) currently has a 38% stake in the company. News Corp also fully owns Sky Italia, about 78% of New Zealand's SKY Network Television Limited and b.net of Croatia and Montenegro.

The first CEO of BSkyB was Sam Chisholm, who was CEO of Sky TV before the merger. Chisholm served in this position until 1997. He was followed by Mark Booth who was credited with leading the company through the introduction of Sky Digital. Tony Ball was appointed in 1999 and completed the company's analogue to digital conversion. He is also credited with returning the company to profit and bringing subscriber numbers to new heights. In 2003 Ball announced his resignation and James Murdoch, son of Rupert Murdoch was announced as his successor. This appointment caused allegations of nepotism from shareholders.[47]

On 7 December 2007 it was announced that Rupert Murdoch would be stepping down as BSkyB's Non-Executive Chairman and would be replaced by his son, James. It was also announced that James would be stepping down as CEO of BSkyB and will be replaced by Jeremy Darroch.[48]

[edit] Organisation

[edit] Direct subsidiaries

British Sky Broadcasting Ltd
Operating company for the Sky pay-television service.
Sky Television Ltd
The original Sky Television plc, now a holding company
Sports Internet Group Ltd
Sports content and online betting services.
British Interactive Broadcasting Holdings Ltd
Interactive television services, formerly an alliance of BSkyB, BT Group, HSBC and Matsushita.
Easynet Ltd
Network infrastructure for Sky Broadband, Easynet connect, UK Online, and third party corporate customers.
Mykindaplace.com
Being both an agency and a media owner, run many successful sites.
Aura Sports Ltd
Media Sales Agency, sells advertising on the majority of premiership football club websites, as well as other major sports.
Aura Play Ltd
Another Media Sales Agency, sells advertising across a number of websites in the music and entertainment sector.
Sky Ireland
Operating company for Sky pay-television service in the Republic of Ireland.
IRN
Provides a service of news bulletins, audio and copy to commercial radio stations in the UK and beyond.

[edit] Joint ventures

AETN UK (50%) - with A&E Television Networks. Operates History (UK), Bio. (UK) and Crime & Investigation Network (UK) channels.
Attheraces Holdings Limited (48.5%)[49] - with Arena Leisure. Operates At the Races.
Australian News Channel Pty Limited (33.3%)[49] - with Seven Network and PBL Media. Operates Sky News Australia.
Chelsea Digital Media (35%)[49] - with Chelsea FC. Operates Chelsea TV.
MUTV Limited (33.3%)[49] - with Manchester United F.C. Operates MUTV.
Nickelodeon UK Ltd (40%)[49] - with MTV Networks Europe, part of Viacom. Operates Nickelodeon UK and associated channels.

[edit] Partnership interests

Comedy Central (UK) (25%)[49] - with Paramount British Pictures, part of Viacom
DTV Services Ltd (20%) - with Arqiva, BBC Channel 4 and ITV plc. Manages and markets the Freeview brand.[50]
NGC Network International LLC and NGC Network Latin America LLC (21%)[49] - with National Geographic.

[edit] Other investments

ITV plc (7.5%).[51]

[edit] Others

Other subsidiaries include Sky In-Home Service Ltd which installs Sky equipment, and the Luxembourg based British Sky Broadcasting SA which is the company which leases transponders on Astra satellites.

[edit] Financial Performance

BSkyB subscription income (NPV) and active customers to Q4 2006, Ofcom UK figures, excludes ROI

Year ended Turnover (£m) Profit/(loss)
before tax (£m)		 Net profit/
(loss)(£m)
30 June 2009 5,359 456 259
30 June 2008 4,952 60 (127)
30 June 2007 4,551 815 499
30 June 2006 4,148 798 551
30 June 2005 4,048 631 425
30 June 2004 3,656 480 322
30 June 2003 3,186 128 190
30 June 2002 2,776 (1,276) (1,383)
30 June 2001 2,306 (515) (539)
30 June 2000 1,847 (263) (272)
30 June 1999 1,545 (389) (285)
30 June 1998 1,434 271 249
30 June 1997 1,270 314 288
30 June 1996 1,008 257 -
30 June 1995 778 155 -
30 June 1994 550 93 -
30 June 1993 380 (76) -
30 June 1992 233 (188) -
30 June 1991 93 (759) -

[edit] Logos

1995–1997

1997–1998

2000–2009

November 2009–present

[edit] Football rights

BSkyB's purchase of broadcast rights for major sporting events, most importantly Premiership football, has been the bedrock of its success. The company paid over £300 million for the Premier League rights, beating the BBC and ITV, and has had a monopoly of live matches since the inception of the Premier League in 1992. Murdoch has described sport as a "battering ram" for pay-television, providing a strong customer base.[52]

However, following a lengthy legal battle with the European Commission, which deemed the exclusivity of the rights to be against the interests of competition and the consumer, BSkyB's monopoly came to an end from the 2007–08 season. In May 2006 the Irish broadcaster Setanta Sports was awarded two of the six Premiership packages that the English FA offered to broadcasters. Sky picked up the remaining four for £1.3 billion.[53]

BT offer a pay per view service of selected Premier League matches through their BT Vision service[54], and Virgin Media offer free highlights on the Virgin Media website.

In September 2008, BT announced that it is thinking of bidding for live Premier League matches when the bidding starts in January 2009.[55]

[edit] Set Top Boxes and conditional access

Sky utilizes the VideoGuard pay-TV scrambling system owned by NDS, a News Corporation subsidiary. There are tight controls over use of VideoGuard decoders; they are not available as stand-alone DVB CAMs (Conditional Access Modules). BSkyB has design authority over all digital satellite receivers capable of receiving their service. The receivers, though designed and built by different manufacturers, must conform to the same user interface look-and-feel as all the others. This extends to the Personal video recorder (PVR) offering (branded Sky+). BSkyB initially charged additional subscription fees for using a Sky+ PVR with their service; waiving the charge for subscribers whose package included two or more premium channels. This changed as from 1 July 2007, and now customers that have Sky+ and subscribe to any Sky subscription package get Sky+ included at no extra charge. Customers that don't subscribe to Sky's channels can still pay a monthly fee to enable Sky+ functions. In January 2010 Sky discontinued the Sky+ Box, limited the standard Sky Box to Multiroom upgrade only and started to issue the Sky+HD Box as standard, thus giving all new subscribers the functions of Sky+.[56] In September 2007, Sky launched a new TV advertising campaign targeting Sky+ at women. As of 31 March 2008 Sky have 3,393,000 Sky+ users.[57]

[edit] Xbox 360

On 29 May 2009 it was confirmed that Sky Player would be made available via Microsoft's Xbox 360 games console.[58] Included is live streaming of various television channels, on-demand movies and live sports programming. This was a worldwide first for Microsoft, and is only available in the UK and Ireland.

[edit] Channel restrictions in the Republic of Ireland

Sky subscribers in the Republic of Ireland have a more restricted choice of channels compared to Northern Ireland or subscribers in Great Britain. The standard Irish channels RTÉ One, RTÉ Two, TV3, TG4 and 3e are available to all Irish subscribers and unavailable by any other means on Satellite. However only BBC One Northern Ireland, BBC Two Northern Ireland and Channel 4 are available to Irish Sky subscribers. Free to air channels like the ITV family of channels, BBC Three, BBC Four, BBC News, BBC HD and Five can only be tuned via the Other Channels[59] section. As these channels are only available via the Other Channels section it is not possible for Irish Sky+ or Sky+ HD subscribers to record programmes from these channels onto their boxes. Sky pays the BBC for the right to include BBC One and BBC Two NI on the Irish EPG.[citation needed] Northern Ireland subscribers in some packages get RTÉ One, RTÉ Two and TG4, since the signing of the Good Friday agreement to let RTÉ broadcast there. RTE is the biggest channel in Ireland and the 2nd biggest in Europe.

[edit] Television channels operated by Sky

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Preliminary Results 2009
  2. ^ a b http://www.google.com/finance?q=bsy
  3. ^ a b Key facts and figures
  4. ^ "Sky HDTV launch runs into trouble". BBC News. 22 May 2006. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5003728.stm. Retrieved 5 March 2007. 
  5. ^ Article explaining Sky's test 3D Broadcast Sky to Broadcast 3D Premier League Live Games This Weekend (Nine UK Pubs to Enjoy Live 3D Football/Soccer: Arsenal vs Manchester United)
  6. ^ "BSkyB swoops on internet provider". BBC News. 21 October 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4363036.stm. 
  7. ^ The Climate Group
  8. ^ "Sky to launch subscription competitor to Freeview". Brand Republic. 8 February 2007. http://www.brandrepublic.com/bulletins/digital/article/632027/sky-launch-subscription-competitor-freeview/. Retrieved 23 May 2009. 
  9. ^ Tryhorn, Chris (26 February 2007). "Darling steps into Sky–ITV row". London: The Guardian. http://media.guardian.co.uk/bskyb/story/0,,2021890,00.html. Retrieved 5 March 2007. 
  10. ^ Osborne, Alistair (26 February 2007). "Sky dispute sees Virgin Media lose customers". London: The Daily Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/markets/2808720/Sky-dispute-sees-Virgin-Media-lose-customers.html. Retrieved 11 May 2007. 
  11. ^ "BSkyB agrees £125m Amstrad deal". BBC News. 31 July 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6923517.stm. Retrieved 31 July 2007. 
  12. ^ "BSkyB passes 1 million broadband customers". Reuters. 29 October 2007. http://uk.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUKWLA199720071029?rpc=401&. Retrieved 29 October 2007. 
  13. ^ "BSkyB offers ITV vote surrender". BBC News. 29 October 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7067581.stm. Retrieved 29 October 2007. 
  14. ^ "BSkyB announces that they will offer online TV channels via the internet.". Dish Check Dish TV News. 10 November 2008. http://dishcheck.com/Blog/online-tv/sky-tv-online/. Retrieved 10 November 2008. 
  15. ^ "Sky to replace 90,000 HD boxes.". BBC Newsbeat. 17 February 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/technology/newsid_7894000/7894752.stm. Retrieved 17 February 2009. 
  16. ^ "Sky Songs Review.". Completing the Internet. 22 February 2010. http://www.completingtheinternet.com/page/2#369272210. Retrieved 22 February 2010. 
  17. ^ BSkyB wins in £709m lawsuit against HP-EDS
  18. ^ "Sky Q2 Interim Press Release". BSkyB. 28 January 2010. http://corporate.sky.com/documents/pdf/press_releases/4ad9b907f137492d998022a042ac035b/280110_Interim_Results_Press_Release. Retrieved 5 February 2010. 
  19. ^ "Consumer Panel asks Ofcom to step in to resolve Virgin and BSkyB dispute". 14 March 2006. http://www.ofcomconsumerpanel.org.uk/nr/140307.htm. 
  20. ^ "NCC demands action on dispute between Virgin Media and BSkyB". 1 March 2007. http://www.ncc.org.uk/cgi-bin/kmdb10.cgi/-load747560_nccviewcurrent.htm. 
  21. ^ "Market investigation into the pay TV industry". 20 March 2007. http://www.ofcom.org.uk/media/news/2007/03/nr_20070320. 
  22. ^ BSkyB bid £160m for Virgin Media TV channels
  23. ^ a b Multiple HD channels to launch on Virgin
  24. ^ Virgin to show Channel 4 content in HD
  25. ^ Virgin Media in HD content deal with Channel 4
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