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Sky - Digital Terrestrial Service

BSkyB is to launch a pay-TV service later this year on digital terrestrial television (DTT).

The line-up of channels on the new service will offer a range of content including sports, movies, entertainment and news. The sports service will include live coverage from the Barclays Premiership and other top events.

The new service will make use of existing capacity that Sky currently uses to broadcast Sky Three, Sky News and Sky Sports News. As a result, these channels will cease to be available free-to-air via DTT in advance of the launch of the pay-TV service.

Sky plans to broadcast its pay-TV channels on DTT using the MPEG4 compression technology, bringing innovation to the platform and enabling Sky to offer four 24-hour video streams in place of the three Sky channels currently available, with further improvements expected in future. The pay-TV service will use a highly secure conditional access system similar to the one that Sky uses for its satellite television service.

To access the service, customers will buy a new set-top box that includes the relevant CA software and MPEG4 decoder. It is anticipated that once the service launches multiple manufacturers will have the opportunity to produce compatible set-top-boxes and other DTT receivers.

The launch of the new service is subject to approval by Ofcom of the necessary variations to licences held by Sky and National Grid Wireless, which provides DTT transmission and multiplexing services to Sky.

Mike Darcey, Sky's Chief Operating Officer, said: "We look forward to bringing some of Sky's most popular content to digital terrestrial viewers. This will give families more choice and increase the availability of leading content and channel brands."

From next month Setanta Sports 1 - with coverage of 46 live Premiership games next season as well as Scottish and other top-flight league football - will be available on Freeview for an additional £10.99 a month. waveguide

Sky takes control of set-top future




BSkyB's deal to acquire Sir Alan Sugar's Amstrad will enable it to accelerate the rollout of enhanced TV services such as full broadband on-demand programming.

The £125m takeover deal will see Sir Alan continue to run the set-top box supplier on a 12-month rolling contract and will enable Sky to fully control the design and development of its future set-top boxes.

"Sky already controls content, and this deal importantly gives it full control over the future direction of its set-top boxes," said Guy Bisson, senior analyst at Screen Digest. "Sky's growth has been driven by technical innovation through the likes of Sky+ and Sky HD [high definition]."

Mr Bisson added that the deal would enable it to speed up the provision of full broadband on-demand programming by marrying its Easynet broadband service with the "back channel" in its high-end set-top boxes.

The company currently offers a limited service called Sky Anytime on TV, a "push" video on-demand service over satellite that is available to 1.5 million Sky+ and Sky HD customers.

"The acquisition will work, in a way, how the Hollywood movie studios operate a model of owning the chain all the way from film production to distribution," said one analyst. "Amstrad was like the specialist in the middle and Sky can absorb the margins the company made - somewhere around 20%."

This analyst described the deal as "bad news" for Sky's other set-top box suppliers, which include Thomson and Pace.

Mr Bisson said that Sky could in the future look to supply Amstrad set-top boxes to other satellite operations around the world owned by News Corporation, which is Sky's largest shareholder with a 39% stake.

These include Sky Italia, Star TV in Asia and Australia's Foxtel, which News Corp subsidiary News Limited manages with a 25% stake.

Mr Bisson pointed out that News Corp-owned company NDS already has similar relationships with the company's satellite TV businesses around the world, providing encryption technology for their set-top boxes.




guardian