Sky to launch a pay-TV digital terrestrial service

How can they call getting response from just 21 individuals a consultation.

It seems to be the same with all OFCOM consultations - the general viewing public, and even those of us who follow the media quite closely, don't know about them until after the consultation period has ended.

Well if you look at media guardian Lost fans will not be disapointed as Sky onc is tipped to be among the lineup. Sky onc will also be simmulcasting Sunrise from a couple of weeks time, so there will still be a sky news presence. I would imagine that either Sky three will start showing Lost in the next few weeks, or before the new series starts sky onc rerun the current series so freeview viewers can catch up.

Sky are desperate to have a terestrial foot hold. I can honestly see five become Sky One once they buy it out right.

Does Thames (Freemantle) still own any of it or have they since sold it on?

I think the point was that they would no longer be available on the "Freeview", regardless of whether they (or variations) would be available as part of a subscription package.

oh, "sky onc" - tedious.

I don't think five will be taken over by sky, atleast not at the moment. I would not be suprised if Virgin make a move on five, in an attempt to beat sky at its own game. Plus if virgin got there hands on it they would have a lot more flexibility with shows such as CSI and Greys Anatomy and even Prison Break, as these all air on virgin channels.

It was touted when Sky bought their stake in ITV that perhaps they'd get their hands on Five in some sort of deal with RTL taking over ITV, as Sky aren't restricted in how much of Five they can own, unlike ITV.

Could another reason for the launch of the new service not be that SKY One is about to lose its contract on Virgin Media this month, and there is a chance that the contract may not be renewed, due to Virgin being annoyed with Sky. So Sky have decided to abandon the 3 million cable viewers and instead go after the 11 million freeview owners. Therefore there is a chance that the channel would be able to grown and would have larger exposure. Plus it will mean that sky are basically pointing two fingers up at virgin and have said that if they are going to be difficult with there cable service then they can find another avenue, and might be able to attract more viewers over to the freeview service.

It all depends on the price of the service, to whether freeview will suffer. If they asking for less than what top up tv is asking for then they could do very well, although i suspect that the price maybe the same, due to the premiership football. The fact is the announcement was only made today to steal virgin's thunder, which shows sky is worried about the competion, so there is likely to be lots of incetives to make people join the new service. It also shows that in the future of british broadcasting the two big players will only be Sky and Virgin, with the BBC obviously being excluded due to it being a public service.

The fact is this will probably help encourage the growth of freeview, as many sky suscribers will think that they would be able to get these key channels for a fraction of the price of sky.

Firstly if that's true I expect Virgin be shooting themselves in the foot to some extent.


Secondly - really if you need new equipment, you're not targetting the 11m Freeview customers.

A better business model would surely be to use the same technology as Top Up TV did and hence target the 250,000 or so people who are now pissed off they've got a box that's no use for anything - so Sky come along with a service and they'd be tempted to give it a try. However, I doubt they'd be tempted to buy yet another new Set Top Box for yet another service.


The problem we're getting into now is Freeview (I know technically it's DTT, but people see it all as Freeview) isn't the one simple platform it was intended to be. There are now four or five variations of it - the standard Freeview, TUTV Anytime, BT Vision, Sky and arguably Setanta, who'll be using old TUTV boxes IIRC. There is also Freeview Playback launched to add further confusion to the customer.


I think they were just about getting away with Freeview, TUTV and BT Vision - but adding Sky to the mix confuses things further.


And a final thought which might give us hope - Sky have been refused permission before to run pay-TV services on DTT themselves. IIRC they were originally supposed to be partners with Granada/Carlton in On DIgital, but were blocked from doing so, but could provide them with channel content. Similarly with Freeview they were blocked from taking a whole mux, instead having to provide their channels through a third party - so perhaps, just perhaps, there is a bit of hope.


Who knows - maybe it's all an elaborate hoax to hi-jack V-Day!

There is a vital flaw here, to get the pay Sky channels, you need a new Freeview box with the new encryption system.

So the existing Freeview viewers would not have instant access anyway.

digiperson

it seems, Sky One, Sky News, Sky Sports, and Sky Movies, are the 4 expected channels on this service, i wonder if you can opt out of the Sports and Movies, and if other channels will want to join it, renting their own transponder space.

This news makes no odds to me as I've always found Sky very tacky.

Can't see this kind of service working on Freeview.

Out of interest, has the new ownership of the fomer TUTV linear streams been decided yet? Could Sky bid for these in order to extend its DTT service?

I just can't see a subscription service offering only four extra channels being very attractive to consumers.