British Sky Broadcasting
Sky Picnic is a proposed pay TV service to launch on the digital terrestrial television platform in the United Kingdom from British Sky Broadcasting. The launch of the service is currently being held back due to a consultation process from the UK media regulator, Ofcom, announced on October 4, 2007. Sky has submitted plans to Ofcom to put three free-to-air channels currently available on digital terrestrial television behind a pay-wall and market the new channels under the brand Picnic will offer subscribers premium Sky content, including Sky Sports 1, Sky Movies Screen 1 and Sky One. Disney Channel is the first third-party broadcaster to join Picnic, second is Discovery Channel.
The service will initially comprise three MPEG-2 video streams but will switch to MPEG-4 and offer a fourth stream carrying Sky News 24/7 if Ofcom approves use of the more bandwidth-efficient compression format.
It currently offers Sky News, Sky Three and Sky Sports News on Freeview. Sky intends to launch a three-channel package using existing MPEG-2 technology, and wants to be able to bundle broadband and telephony products into the package. The first channel on the Picnic service would be a simulcast of Sky Sports 1. The second would show Disney Channel during the day and Sky Movies SD1 in the evening, and the third would offer Discovery Channel during the day and a simulcast of Sky One in the evening.
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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 FA 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.[25]
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 will come 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.[26]
BT offer a pay per view service of selected Premier League matches through their BT Vision service[27], and Virgin Media offer free highlights on the Virgin Media website. [28]
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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+). Although the manufacturers have to follow BSkyB's design criteria, many people think that giving the broadcaster such total control over the viewing experience (and viewing prices) may keep other PVR features from appearing on BSkyB's receivers due to the monopoly position over the decoding CAMs[citation needed]. BSkyB initially charged additional subscription fees for using a Sky+ PVR with their service; however, from early 2004, this additional £10 per month charge was waived for subscribers whose package includes two or more premium channels or Sky HD boxes to encourage existing owners to upgrade. As from July 1, 2007, customers that do have Sky+ and pay £10 (as they don't subscribe to 2 or more premium channels) will get Sky+ free of charge. The few customers that don't subscribe to Sky's channels and have Sky+ still pay the £10 per month. 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. [29]
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Television channels operated by BSkyB
- At The Races — formerly operated by Channel 4; now owned by Sky
- Sky Active — rebranded from Open...
- Sky Arts — rebranded from Artsworld on March 1, 2007
- Sky Arts HD — rebranded from Artsworld HD on March 1, 2007
- Sky Box Office (pay-per-view)
- Sky Box Office Events
- Sky Box Office HD 1 & 2
- Sky Movies Premiere, Premiere+1, Comedy, Classics, Family, Modern Greats, Indie, Sci-Fi & Horror, Action & Thriller and Drama (from April 4, 2007 these channels supersede Sky Movies, 1–10 and Sky Cinema 1 and 2 which in turn supersede Sky Movies Premier 1–5, Sky Movies Max/Moviemax 1–4 and Sky Movies Cinema 1 & 2, but not necessarily in that order)
- Sky Movies HD 1 and 2 — Dedicated High-definition television Movie Channels
- Sky News - Free-to-air
- Sky One
- Sky One HD
- Sky Two
- Sky Three — The only Free-to-view channel from BSkyB via Satellite (however, it should be noted that Sky Three is Free-to-air on Digital Terrestrial Television in the UK).
- Sky Sports 1–3
- Sky Sports Xtra
- Sky Sports HD 1-3
- Sky Sports News
- Sky Real Lives - rebranded from Sky Travel on 7 November 2007
- Sky Real Lives +1 - rebranded from Sky Travel +1 on 7 November 2007
- Sky Real Lives 2 - rebranded from Sky Travel Extra on 7 November 2007
- Sky Travel - rebranded from Sky Travel Shop on 7 November 2007
- Sky Vegas
- Sky Poker
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See also
- Sky Digital (UK & Ireland) EPG
- Sky Broadband
- Sky Kids magazine
- Sky Magazine
- Telecommunication convergence
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References
- ^ Shah, Saeed. "Minister takes on Murdoch over Sky stake in ITV", The Independent, 2007-02-27. Retrieved on 2007-03-05.
- ^ British Sky Broadcasting Group plc, Results for the twelve months ended 30 June 2006PDF (229 KiB)
- ^ Bell, Emily. "Rupert and the joys of nepotism", The Guardian, 2003-11-05. Retrieved on 2007-03-06.
- ^ BSkyB - Investor Relations - Press Release
- ^ BSkyB - Corporate - Press Release. Retrieved on 2007-08-12.
- ^ Consumer Panel asks Ofcom to step in to resolve Virgin and BSkyB dispute (2006-03-14).
- ^ NCC demands action on dispute between Virgin Media and BSkyB (2007-03-01).
- ^ Market investigation into the pay TV industry (2007-03-20).
- ^ Oatts, Joanne. "Sky to launch new DTT service", Digital Spy, 2007-02-08. Retrieved on 2007-03-05.
- ^ Quinn, Ian. "Sky rethinks Freeview exit and football strategy", Brand Republic, 2007-03-05. Retrieved on 2007-03-05.
- ^ NTL (2006-11-09). "Ntl Incorporated Discussions with ITV plc". Press release. Retrieved on 2006-12-06.
- ^ ITV plc (2006-11-09). "ITV and NTL 'in merger talks'". Press release. Retrieved on 2006-12-06.
- ^ Welsh, James. "Sky buys 17.9% of ITV", Digital Spy, 2006-11-17. Retrieved on 2006-12-06.
- ^ Wilkes, Neil. "Sky/ITV: Branson statement in full", Digital Spy, 2006-11-20. Retrieved on 2006-12-06.
- ^ Welsh, James. "Ofcom examines impact of Sky's ITV stake", Digital Spy, 2006-11-21. Retrieved on 2006-12-06.
- ^ Oatts, Joanne. "NTL complains about Sky as it drops plans for ITV Ofcom", Digital Spy, 2006-12-06. Retrieved on 2006-12-06.
- ^ Oatts, Joanne. "RTL to make ITV decision this week", Digital Spy, 2006-11-16. Retrieved on 2006-12-06.
- ^ BSkyB swoops on internet provider. BBC News (2005-10-21).
- ^ The Climate Group
- ^ Tryhorn, Chris. "Darling steps into Sky–ITV row", The Guardian, 2007-02-26. Retrieved on 2007-03-05.
- ^ BSkyB agrees £125m Amstrad deal. BBC News (2007-07-31). Retrieved on 2007-07-31.
- ^ BSkyB passes 1 million broadband customers. Reuters (2007-10-29). Retrieved on 2007-10-29.
- ^ BSkyB offers ITV vote surrender. BBC News (2007-10-29). Retrieved on 2007-10-29.
- ^ "Sky HDTV launch runs into trouble", BBC News, 2006-05-22. Retrieved on 2007-03-05.
- ^ ;Douglas, Torin. "Murdoch's rise to the top", BBC News, 1999-03-12. Retrieved on 2007-03-05.
- ^ "Setanta joins Premiership action", BBC News, 2006-05-05. Retrieved on 2007-03-05.
- ^ What Do I Get? | Sport On Demand | BT Vision
- ^ Free match highlights - Sport - Virgin Media
- ^ "BSkyB's new Sky+ advert claims to show What Women Think", Tech Digest, 2007-09-14. Retrieved on 2007-09-14.
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