SKY Network Television

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SKY Network Television Limited (Template:Asx; Template:Nzx), often trading as SKY, was New Zealand's first pay television service and is at present, 2006, New Zealand's largest pay television operator. As of June 30 2005, SKY had 619,168 subscribers.

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Services

Sky Television operates both a UHF terrestrial pay television service on five networks of frequencies covering around 83 percent of the population and direct broadcasting satellite (DBS) service offering around 60 channels of programming. Sky TV plans to add many new channels to its lineup in the future and is currently one of the world's fastest growing and most successful pay TV operators per capita.

Sky TV's major focus is currently the implementation of an OpenTV based interactive TV platform.

Sky provides a number of channels to TelstraClear for their Cable Television offering.

Sky also owns part of an Online DVD rental service - DVD Unlimited in partnership with New Zealand's biggest Internet Service Provider Xtra.

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My Sky

In December 2005, Sky TV released its own Personal Video Recorder, which essentially is an upgraded set top box similar to Foxtel IQ in Australia or TiVo in the U.S.. Called My Sky, it offers viewers the ability to pause live television, rewind television, record up to two channels at once straight to the set top box and watch the start of a recorded programme while still recording the end. It also gives viewers access to a revamped Guide and the new Planner, used to plan and access recordings at the touch of a button.

It has recently been discovered that there is software in My Sky that after an hour of no signal from Sky then the decoder locks playback of pre-recorded programmes, this function is soon to be removed. This was discovered after the failure of the Optus B1 satellite.

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History

Founded by Terry Jarvis, Craig Heatley,Trevor Farmer and Alan Gibb in 1987 as Sky Media Limited.

Sky Media Limited originally formed to investigate the possibility of beaming sports programming into clubs and pubs using high performance 4 metre satellite dishes by Jarvis and an engineering associate Brian Green but was redirected into pay television following successful bidding in 1990 for four groups of UHF frequencies in the Auckland, Hamilton and Tauranga regions.

Sky rapidly won long term rights from US sports network ESPN (which become a 1 % shareholder) as well as CNN and HBO providing it with a supply of sports, news and movies for three channels: SKY Sport, SKY News (a mix of CNN International and BBC bulletins) and SKY Movies (later renamed HBO, before reverting to its original name.)

Initially only operating in the Auckland region Sky contracted Broadcast Communications to provide the broadcast service and transmission from its Panorama Road studios formerly owned by defunct broadcaster Northern Television.

Later, as funding allowed Sky extended its coverage throughout most of New Zealand, in 1994, SKY launched two further channels, Discovery and Orange. The company expanded to the Hawkes Bay, Manawatu, Southland and Otago regions, follow by the Wairarapa, Taupo and Wanganui regions in 1995. Its final UHF expansion, in 1996, was to Taranaki, Whangarei and Eastern Bay of Plenty.

In April 1997, SKY introduced a nationwide analogue direct broadcasting via satellite (DBS) service, that, and would also give it the opportunity to offer its customers more channels and interactive options. It upgraded it to a digital service in December 1998.

The concept of a pay television service was new to New Zealand and Sky had early problems. These included viewer acceptance of subscriber television and faced difficulty in educating retailers and customers on the use of the original decoders a problem. The latter was partially fixed by the introduction of newer and more easy to use decoders that allowed greater viewer flexibility.

Channels that are no longer carried by Sky TV include: CNBC, Granada UKTV, Hallmark Channel, TVSN and Property TV. A SkyMail email service was also featured for a time, but was later pulled without explanation (including the wireless keyboards they produced for it).

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2006 SKY Digital outage

Image:Merge-arrows.gif It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Optus Fleet of Satellites#Failures. (Discuss)

The direct broadcasting satellite (DBS) service went offline just before 7 p.m. NZST on March 30, 2006. The interruption affected service to over 550,000 customers and caused many decoders to advise customers of "rain fade." Due to excessive volume of calls to the SKY toll-free helpdesk SKY posted update messages on their website advising customers that they were working with Optus to restore service by midnight.

SKY are giving the cause as a problem during a routine manouevre of the Optus B1 satellite. Sky have also blamed the total solar eclipse that occurred the same day, with the solar panels being in shadow and unable to recharge themselves. Astronomers have said that it is extremely unlikely that there is any connection as the satellite would only have been in shadow for a few more minutes than usual if it was even in the shadow of the Moon at all during the eclipse. [1] Service was resumed at 8 a.m. on March 31 2006. [2] SKY will credit customers with one days' subscription fees as compensation for the downtime, at a cost to the company of NZ$ 1.5 million.

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Ownership

Following the total relaxation of foreign ownership limitations in April 1991Template:Fact.Sky announced the purchase by a consortium formed by Ameritech, Bell Atlantic, TCI and Time Warner of 51% of Sky for an undisclosed price, suggested to be $100 million It was following this injection of capital (around $25 million) that Sky reduced its prices extended coverage and introduced the new simpler decoders.

In 1988Template:Fact, TVNZ still cash and asset rich looked to Sky to foster development of mutual interests and eventually took a 35% holding in the company. Hedged against competition TVNZ allowed Sky to advertise on its stations and allegedly benefit from their association with TVNZ in the market for overseas programming. Had it not been for later events the combination of the two companies may well have produced a New Zealand media giant.

Since then TVNZ Group sought to divest itself of non-core assets as it faced pressure to provide dividends to its owner the New Zealand Government. The sale of its shareholding in Sky and an increasing focus on digital terrestrial broadcast along with the involvement of new owners Independent Newspapers Limited lead to rift between the two broadcasters which culminated in the decision by Sky to sell rebroadcast rights to its sports content to rival broadcaster Canwest, operator of TV3 and TV4.

In July 2005, SKY Network Television Limited and Independent Newspapers Limited merged the two companies into a new company, MergeCo,which was renamed Sky Network Television Limited.Independent Newspapers now own 78% of SKY Network Television. The Commonwealth Bank of Australia are the only other shareholders who own more than 5% of the company.

Sky should not be confused with BSkyB in the UK, though one of BSkyB's shareholders, News Corporation, has a 44% shareholding in SKY Network Television, following the 2005 merger.Template:Fact.

In November 2005, Sky announced it had purchased the free-to-air channel Prime Television for NZ$30 million. Sky will use Prime to promote its pay content and to show delayed sports coverage. The New Zealand's Commerce Commission issued clearance for the purchase on February 8,2006.

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Channels

This lists all current digital channels, including those available in UHF and Free To Air (FTA).

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Radio Stations

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SKY Digital Music

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Other Channels

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Interactive Services

  • Pay-Per-View channels.
  • SkyBet - interactive sports betting serivce.
  • Go Auto - classified auto advertising.
  • Interactive Programme Guide - Television listing information.
  • PlayinTV Games - video games.
  • MindGames - challenging video games.
  • Weather Channel - interactive weather maps and information.
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References

  • SKY Network Television Limited (2005). [3] Retrieved Jan. 1, 2006.
  • New Zealand's Commerce Commission Press release February 8 2006.[4] Retrieved Feb. 9 2006.
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External links

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