Launching a channel on SKY

Merely out of curiosity, to launch a channel on the Sky satellite network what would the process involve and what would the costs be etc? For example a channel that just showed programmes with no presenters, continuity announcers and so forth.

I'm not sure I'd be able to put a figure on it - perhaps someone else might like to hazard some numbers - but it's safe to say the answer is 'lots'.

Things you'll need:

• Programmes - either making them yourself, or buying them in.
• Some way of playing them out - again, you can either do it yourself (in which case you'll need an automation system and a lot of VT machines) or contract it out to someone like Red Bee, Arqiva, Technicolor or Sky.
• An ad sales team, assuming you want this venture to make some money
• An Ofcom licence - I think the Television Licensable Content Service licence is the correct one for channels on Sky. Plus there's all the costs of complying with the terms of the licence - ie making sure nothing in your programmes will break any Ofcom rules and incur a slapped wrist or worse.
• Coding and multiplexing; uplink; and a little bit of bandwidth on an Astra 2 satellite.
• This could be the tricky bit - a Sky EPG slot. A year or two ago, Sky stopped accepting new applications for EPG numbers, because the older Digiboxes were reaching their capacity, and their solution was to not add any more. If you want on the Sky EPG, you'll need to buy a slot from someone else.

Have I missed anything?

Where's the problem? BBC ONE is on channel 101, and the numbers go right up to 999 Sky Preview, with loads of unused numbers in between. Are Sky really going to care about early boxes that can't store more than a certain number of channels in their memory?

Freeview haven't given a monkeys that the DVB-T format change in DSO'd areas (e.g. Wales, Granada, West) has rendered a tiny minority of early digital terrestrial boxes (e.g. ONdigital/ITV Digital ones) incompatible with the post-DSO digital terrestrial signals, thereby requiring people with such boxes still in working condition to buy new boxes. So why should Sky worry about rendering obsolete peoples' early Sky Digital boxes (circa 1999) by having more channels than such boxes can hold?

Because there is a reasonable proportion of them left and Sky would have to pay to replace them all.

There's also (potentially) all the numbers from 0101 to 0999.


The main difference is that Freeview don't supply any boxes and don't charge a subsciption. If customers can't receive a service then the fault lies with their choice of manufacturer.

Sky supply theirs and charge subs. Nobody is going to continue paying for a service if they can't see many of the channels on the EPG. Consequently, Sky would either have to replace the box (free) or accept that some customers may leave.

Oh I see. That said, some people might be glad if their Sky digibox didn't have memory capacity to store all currently available channels, e.g. ...

Some people might be only too glad to see the box unable to store the shopping channels, holiday channels, religious channels (e.g. God TV) and foreign channels (e.g. Zee TV, Star, TVE International).

People without children might not mind the box not having sufficient memory to hold the kids' channels.

Parents with children in the house would only be too glad to see the box unable to store the adult channels like Television X, then they needn't fear their little-uns tuning into those. For example, say your three year old has learned how to switch from Nick Jr to CBeebies by tapping in the 3 digit number, he/she could just as readily switch to Television X / Playboy given the number.

I bet many people think that getting all the BBC One regions other than their correct local one is a waste of EPG space, and wouldn't mind if their Sky digibox being unable to hold them all (as long as they could get just their own relevant one, e.g. BBC One West if you live in Bristol or Bath).

I believe Sky have to approve what you are broadcasting - that it not only fills the time in the slot you want to buy, but it also that it is of a good enough quality, before they will give you a slot. There was some documentary about a channel called Raj TV, and the problems they had trying to launch on Sky.

The regions are there for if the postcode location system fails. E.G You live in the BBC Midlands area but get BBC East Midlands.

Sky have no say over the 'quality' or content of a channel - if they did there'd be a lot missing! Places on their platform's EPG are, by law, available to anyone who wants them as long as there's room and they pay the going rate.

You'd need some sort of line from where your channel is being played out and the location where the channel will be multiplexed/uplinked

If you want to broadcast any music you'll need a PRS license

And also because people move around the country and like to be able to see what's going on back home.

A bigger waste of EPG space are the Box Office channels, I'm surprised they haven't been put behind a red button style interface yet.

Also need to bear in mind that if a box ran out of memory to store channels it wouldn't simply be a case of dropping channels that Tumble Tower doesn't like. The whole system would become unstable.

Of course, if all the channels were renamed B1, S5 etc that might save a couple of bytes.....