Sky to launch a pay-TV digital terrestrial service

Five have effectively taken two of them, Setanta another leaving one and a half for Top Up TV's current line up of "channels".


I still fail to see the viability of this - not only are they expecting the people with Freeview boxes to buy a new one, but also the people who've spent hundreds, if not thousands, on a digital TV - and they'd be the people most likely to take up the service I'd imagine.


I think it says alot that I haven't seen one comment in reaction to this news of someone thinking it's a great idea and they'd want to subscribe!

I'm thinking Sky should start their own DTT service to go along side Freeview. Like NTL and Telewest were on Cable. But I know very little I just thought of that.

I think its bad enough for another pay-tv service to launch on FREEview, but to close Sky Three, News and Sports News to do the launch is criminal. News 24 is going to love this.

~The Good Doctor

Very shrewd and good move by Sky.

All those people moaning that because they haven't got/can't have/don't want a satellite dish, they can't watch for e.g Lost, 24, Ryder Cup, US Golf Open, England Cricket Test Matches and One Day Internationals, will now not have an excuse.

So with satellite, cable and DTT there should be 100% reach for the above programmes.

Having pay channels through DTT isnt the problem, its removing Sky News that is, as its free to air (AFAIK) on cable and sky, and is a well needed alternative to BBC News 24.

I thought that Sky News was going to be one of the four channels on Sky's DTT platfrom. It just wasn't going to be free anymore.

Yea, but by it becoming part of this pay service, it will no longer be an ever present service after DSO, and as such will not be an alternative to those who stick with freeview.

I can imagine Top-Up TV being merged with this new BSkyB Venture.

You're very much mistaken there then. The only thing confirmed for the DTT Sky Sports channel is the Barclays Premiership.

Sky will make sure the other jewels in their portfolio are on the other Sky Sports channels to encourage people to subscribe to the full package. They're not going to be stupid enough to offer a channel which offers all their premium content!

And sky shall have an effective monopoly. Dictating prices etc in all markets and reaping the profit...

First of all to correct MartinDTAnderson - there aren't transponders on DTT, there are multiplexes.

I'm keen on this service, but only if the price is £5 a month or less. Sky surely won't be able to get away with anything more, unless greed rather than consumer convenience is their motive.

Oh wait, yes it probably is.

£5 a month - you're having a laugh. Setanta are charging £10.99 just for one sports channel.

Sky aren't going to charge any less than £15, which is their minimal priced package on Digital Satellite. I'd expect it to be more around the £20 mark - they're not going to make it attractive enough to ditch the full Sky Sports/Movies package in favour of this 4-channel deal.


Personally I think the best solution is to keep Sky Three, Sky News and Sky Sports News as they are and squeeze out the fourth channel using the current encoding methods (there is at least one more channel to be squeezed out of Mux C - they've got 5 compared to 6 on Mux D).

That channel should then be used as a pay-per-view channel for the football, and perhaps other events such as boxing and even some movies - either encrypted with a viewing card or similar to Setanta with the pin-number, however unreliable that might be. Alternatively the downtime could be used for some sort of Sky News Active multiscreen service.

That way Freeview viewers don't lose out - and the Premiership games become available to the maximum audience.

I also think this won't work, and certainly not yet on STT. Freeview is growing rapidly, but mainly amongst those who don't want anymore than is currently on offer.

The main place for Pay-TV at the moment is either DSat or DCab. There isn't currently enough bandwidth for sufficient channels to make it worthwhile for someone to buy a new STB just for 4 channels on DTT.

I think some people here are missing the point.

The biggest selling points of Sky are the sport, the movies and the US shows on Sky One. These are what I expect will feature on the new service, and I reckon they'll be a pretty big draw.