71-500: Sky Store is a service operated by Sky Group in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Austria and Switzerland that offers movies and TV shows via video streaming , or DVD and Blu-ray Disc by mail. It originally launched in 2012 by Sky UK offering over 1,000 movies pay-per-view to Sky Anytime + customers, and the "Buy & Keep" model launched in 2014. Sky Store is independent from Sky's satellite TV service, meaning that
142-510: A National Broadcasting School to train on-air and engineering staff. The IBA's approach to regulation was more robust than that of its successors, and it assumed the ultimate role of the broadcaster (whereas today, TV licensees are termed "broadcasters in their own right"). The IBA took a very "hands-on" approach and placed the interests of the viewer before anything else. For example, if two ITV licensees wanted to merge, or another wanted to change its broadcast name, this would require approval by
213-528: A squeeze-out procedure to obtain the remaining shares and delist Sky Deutschland on 15 September 2015. On 9 December 2016, 21st Century Fox announced that it had made an offer to acquire the remainder of Sky plc for £11.7 billion at a value of £10.75 per-share. It marked Fox's second attempt to take over Sky, as its previous attempt under News Corporation was affected by the News International scandal . The two companies reached an agreement on
284-528: A 10-year commitment to the operations and funding of Sky News similar to that of Disney's offer. On 19 June 2018, Disney formally agreed to acquire Sky News as part of Fox's proposed bid, with a 15-year commitment to increase its annual funding from £90 million to £100 million. On 11 July 2018, Fox increased its bid for Sky to £14.00 per share, valuing it at £24.5 billion. Comcast subsequently counterbid just hours later with an offer at £14.75 per-share, valued at £26 billion. On 19 July 2018, after Fox agreed to
355-522: A 17.9% stake in ITV plc for £940 million, a move that attracted anger from NTL shareholder Richard Branson and an investigation from media and telecoms regulator Ofcom . On 6 December 2006, NTL announced that it had complained to the Office of Fair Trading about BSkyB's move. NTL stated that it had withdrawn its attempt to buy ITV plc, citing that it did not believe that there was any possibility to make
426-551: A 39.14% controlling stake in the company; on 9 December 2016, following a previous attempt under News Corporation that was affected by the News International phone hacking scandal , 21st Century Fox announced that it had agreed to buy the remainder of Sky, pending government approval. However, after a bidding war that included the Walt Disney Company (which was, in turn, acquiring most of 21st Century Fox's assets ), US media and telecoms conglomerate Comcast acquired
497-497: A Disney counter-offer, it was reported that Comcast had abandoned its bid for 21st Century Fox to focus solely on Sky. On 20 September 2018, the Panel on Takeovers and Mergers ordered that a blind auction be held "in order to provide an orderly framework for the resolution of this competitive situation". In this process, Fox, followed by Comcast, made new cash-only bids for Sky. After these first two rounds of bidding, there would be
568-486: A Sky TV subscription is not required. The service offers the latest blockbuster movies, TV shows, as well as classic movies for renting (starting from 99p) or buying to keep (from £7.99), digitally in HD quality and optionally a physical version by post. The Sky Store service comes preloaded on Sky Q and Sky+HD boxes, and is also available as a downloadable app on PCs, Now TV , Roku , Android , and other devices. Sky Store
639-420: A course of four weeks. From 1989 to 1992, weekly winnings could not average more than £5,000 per individual contestant or £6,000 in total winnings per week. British versions of popular American quiz shows had to be adjusted – The $ 64,000 Question having a maximum prize initially of 64,000 sixpences (£1,600) in the late 1950s, and in the early 1990s of just £6,400. "The Six Thousand Four Hundred Pound Question"
710-460: A deal on favourable terms. On 17 July 2014, BSkyB's 6.4% stake in ITV was sold to Liberty Global , valued at £481 million. Galaxy ▼ Sky One The Movie Channel ▼ Retained Now ▼ Sky News & Sky Arts The Power Station ▼ Sky Movies The Sports Channel ▼ Sky Sports The Computer Channel ▼ Extinct Independent Broadcasting Authority The Independent Broadcasting Authority ( IBA )
781-609: A house. In 1960, two years after the quiz show scandals in America, the Independent Television Authority (predecessor of the IBA) imposed a £ 1,000 cap on the value of prizes which increased to £1,250 during the late 1970s with an occasional limit of £2,000 which rose to £2,500 by 1981. From 1981 to 1988, weekly winnings could average no more than £1,750. On occasion, said limit could increase to £3,500 over
SECTION 10
#1732771908496852-477: A month later since many of the represented views were more concerned about contractual arrangements which had nothing to do with competition. The Independent Broadcasting Authority was not consulted about the deal; after approval, the IBA demanded precise details about the merger, stated they were considering the repercussions of the deal to ultimately determine whether BSB contracts were null and void. On 17 November,
923-625: A required takeover offer to Sky Deutschland's minority shareholders, resulting in BSkyB acquiring 89.71% of Sky Deutschland's share capital. The acquisitions were completed on 13 November. British Sky Broadcasting Group plc changed its name to Sky plc to reflect the European acquisitions, and the United Kingdom operations were renamed Sky UK Limited . Sky plc bought out the remaining minority shareholders in Sky Deutschland during 2015, using
994-475: A third round where both companies could make new offers. However, the third round of bidding would only be binding if both companies make a bid. The results were to be revealed on 22 September, and be confirmed by the start of trading on 24 September. Comcast won the auction with a bid of £17.28 per-share, beating Fox's bid of £15.67. Sky plc had until 11 October to formally accept this offer. Following its auction victory, Comcast began to acquire Sky shares from
1065-532: Is primarily involved in satellite television , producing and broadcasting. The current CEO is Dana Strong . Initially formed in 1990 by the equal merger of Sky Television and British Satellite Broadcasting , BSkyB became the UK's largest digital pay television company. In 2014, after completing the acquisition of Sky Italia and Sky Deutschland , the merged company changed its name to Sky plc . Prior to November 2018, Rupert Murdoch 's 21st Century Fox owned
1136-548: The Channel Islands . During the early 1980s, the E&;D Department designed and manufactured the specialised broadcast receiving and monitoring equipment used to build the national broadcast network for Channel Four . Subsequently, E&D's engineers proposed a system of analogue television encoding known as MAC (Multiplexed Analogue Component) to provide a standard for the forthcoming satellite television broadcasts that
1207-590: The Chart Show Channels company. Shortly afterwards it acquired Artsworld , giving a majority of subscribers full access to the channel. The buyout was part of James Murdoch's strategy to improve the perceptions BSkyB which could lead to potential new subscribers. John Cassy, the channel manager of Artsworld, said: "It is great news for the arts that a dedicated cultural channel will be available to millions of households." In early 2007 Freeview overtook Sky Digital with nearly 200,000 more subscribers at
1278-586: The European Broadcasting Union was passed to United Kingdom Independent Broadcasting (UKIB) . Such was the sense of purpose and camaraderie amongst former employees of the IBA that they still meet up near Winchester for an annual reunion in late January, typically boasting an attendance of over fifty. The engineering staff of the IBA contributed many papers to international standards groups and conferences over many years. The IBA also operated an Engineering Information service in support of
1349-475: The IBA decided to terminate BSB's contract, but not immediately, as it was deemed unfair to 120,000 viewers who had bought BSB devices. Sam Chisholm was appointed CEO in a bid to reorganise the new company, which, continued to make losses of £10 million per week. The defunct BSB's HQ, Marco Polo House were sold, 39% of the new company's employees were made redundant to leave just under 1000 employees, many of
1420-478: The 1997–2001 deal, but was challenged by On Digital for the rights from 2001 to 2004, thus it was forced to pay £1.1 billion which gave it 66 live games a year. 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 came to an end from the 2007–08 season . In May 2006,
1491-525: The 24th volume published in November 1988. One reason for the termination of the publications was the abolition of the IBA in 1990 and the subsequent privatisation of the Engineering activities as National Transcommunications Limited [NTL]; the government white paper proposing this was published in the autumn of 1988. These reviews are valuable in recording the activities of the various departments of
SECTION 20
#17327719084961562-538: The FTSE 100 index, operation profits increased to £155M a year, and Pearson sold off its 17.5% stake in the company. Sam Chisholm resigned from BSkyB due to a rift with Rupert Murdoch in June 1997. A week later, Murdoch was quoted as saying "I cannot understand the fuss; BSkyB was grossly overpriced", which caused further rifts with the new management. In 1997, BSkyB formed a partnership with Carlton and Granada to bid for
1633-750: The IBA but some articles were written by others from the Independent Television companies and by external specialists. The first volume was published in September 1972 when the Engineering Division was located in Brompton Road, London prior to its move to Crawley Court near Winchester in 1973. Other members of the Division staffed the transmitting stations and maintenance bases spread across the UK. The series ended with
1704-475: The IBA's engineering function, except for a limited number of quality control engineers, was transferred to a newly set-up private company, National Transcommunications Limited (NTL), which continued to run the former IBA transmitter masts. These assets are now within the portfolio operated by Arqiva . In 2008 the IBA's extensive archive was lodged with the University of Bournemouth . The IBA's membership of
1775-453: The IBA. This direct approach also extended to programmes; the IBA could (and did) place limits on how many soap episodes could be shown per week, if they believed programme quality would be compromised. As well as setting guidelines on advertising content (some guidelines only, the remainder being the responsibility of the ASA ), quantity and timings, the IBA also operated monitoring systems for
1846-515: 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 £1.3bn. In October 1994, BSkyB announced its plans to float the company on the UK and US stock exchanges, selling off 20% of the company. The stock flotation reduced Murdoch's holding to 40 per cent and raised £900m, which allowed
1917-583: The UK, but criticised James Murdoch's handling of the scandal. On 28 June 2013, News Corporation was split into two publicly-traded companies; the company's publishing operations (including News International, renamed News UK ) and broadcasting operations in Australia were spun into a new company known as News Corp , while the company's broadcast media assets, including its 39.14% stake in Sky, were renamed 21st Century Fox . On 12 May 2014, BSkyB confirmed that it
1988-538: The United Kingdom. The first CEO of BSkyB was Sam Chisholm , who was CEO of Sky TV before the merger. Chisholm served in this position until 1997. He was followed by Mark Booth who was credited with leading the company through the introduction of Sky. Tony Ball was appointed in 1999 and completed the company's analogue to digital conversion. He is also credited with returning the company to profit and bringing subscriber numbers to new heights. In 2003, Ball announced his resignation and James Murdoch , son of Rupert Murdoch
2059-586: The Virgin name was not licensed to Sky. The new carriage deals are understood to be for up to nine years. The deal was completed in July 2010 and Virgin Media Television was renamed Living TV Group . In June 2010, News Corporation made a bid for complete ownership of BSkyB . However, following the News International phone hacking scandal , critics and politicians began to question the appropriateness of
2130-522: The autumn of 1991, talks were held for the broadcast rights for Premier League for a five-year period, from the 1992 season. British television network ITV were the current rights holders for the Football League , and fought hard to gain the new rights. ITV had increased its offer from £18m to £34m per year to obtain the new rights. BSkyB joined forces with the BBC to make a counter bid. The BBC
2201-454: The company being delisted by early 2019. Sky was delisted on 7 November 2018 after Comcast acquired all remaining shares. In August 2021, Sky Group signed a deal with ViacomCBS to launch Paramount+ in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Austria by 2022. On 3 May 2022, it was announced that Paramount+ will launch on 22 June 2022 for Sky customers in Ireland and
Sky Store - Misplaced Pages Continue
2272-410: The company to cut its debt in half. Sam Chisholm said "By any standards this is an excellent result, in every area of the company has performed strongly". Chisholm became one of the world's most highly paid television executives. In 1995, BSkyB opened its second customer management centre at Dunfermline , Scotland, in addition to its original centre at Livingston which opened in 1989. BSkyB entered
2343-574: The company will eventually lose its ties to the Murdoch family. Disney has a narrower scope of media ownership in the country than the Murdoch family. Sky already has a relationship with Disney for its Sky Cinema service, holding pay television rights to its films in the United Kingdom and operating a dedicated Sky Cinema channel devoted to Disney content. A preliminary report by the Competition and Markets Authority issued January 2018 called for
2414-605: The competing US media and telecoms conglomerate Comcast (owner of NBCUniversal ), announced a counter-offer for Sky at £12.50 per-share, or approximately £22.1 billion. NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke stated that purchasing Sky would roughly double its presence in English-speaking markets, and allow for synergies between the respective networks and studios of NBCUniversal and Sky. On 5 June 2018, Culture Secretary Matt Hancock cleared both 21st Century Fox and Comcast's respective offers to acquire Sky plc. Fox's offer
2485-421: The deal on 15 December, subject to regulatory approval. Ofcom expressed concern that this purchase would give the Murdoch family "material influence over news providers with a significant presence across all key platforms" and "increased influence over the UK news agenda and the political process". However, the regulator did deem that a Fox-owned Sky would be "fit and proper" to hold broadcast licences, despite
2556-516: The decision was taken. ITV also asked the Office of Fair Trading to also investigate since it believed Rupert Murdoch's media empire via the newspapers had influenced the deal. A few days later neither action took effect, ITV believed BSkyB was telephoned and informed of its £262m bid, and the Premier League advised BSkyB to increase its counter bid. BSkyB retained the rights paying £670m for
2627-400: The division during a period of considerable change in broadcasting. IBA staff members were active not only in designing, building and operating transmitter networks they also made significant contributions to new digital broadcasting standards and their implementation. The laboratories of the IBA were in the forefront of the development of digital television technology, as can be seen in some of
2698-470: The end of 2006, while cable broadcaster Virgin Media had three million customers. In July 2007, BSkyB announced the takeover of Amstrad for £125m, a 23.7% premium on its market capitalisation. BSkyB and Virgin Media announced that they had reached agreement for the acquisition by BSkyB of Virgin Media Television. Virgin1 was also a part of the deal and was rebranded as Channel One on 3 September 2010, as
2769-559: The entirety of Sky in 2018 for £17.28 per share. NBCUniversal , which is Sky Group's sister company, has also been a wholly owned subsidiary of Comcast since 2013 . Before the acquisition by Comcast, Sky was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index and had a market capitalisation of approximately £18.75 billion (€26.76 billion) as of 2018. British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB)
2840-427: The establishment of an independent editorial board, and committing to fund the network for at least 10 years. This commitment would be inherited by Disney after the completion of its purchase of 21st Century Fox. On 3 April 2018, Fox stated that Disney had "expressed an interest in acquiring Sky News", which would not be conditional on its proposal to acquire 21st Century Fox. A bidding war began 25 April 2018, when
2911-406: The growth of Sky but the opportunity for savings is now there and Sky will be taking it," he added. "MTV has done extremely well out of that original deal." On 17 April 2003 BSkyB launched its own range of music channels Scuzz , Flaunt and The Amp , as part of its plan to create its own original channels for the platform. Within 18 months the channels failed to make impact, and were outsourced to
Sky Store - Misplaced Pages Continue
2982-435: The insulation or outright divestment of Sky News as a condition of the purchase, so that it is editorially independent from the Murdoch family. Sky had threatened to reevaluate the channel's continued operations if they "unduly impeded merger and/or other corporate opportunities available in relation to Sky's broader business". The channel has operated on a loss of at least £40 million per-year. In February 2018, Fox proposed
3053-526: The late 1980s the IBA was appointed as regulator and transmitter operator for the first DBS ( direct broadcasting by satellite ) service for the UK and awarded the franchise to BSB ( British Satellite Broadcasting ). A year before the launch of BSB, the rival Sky Television was able to launch an analogue service, and intended to overshadow BSB by leasing transponders from Société Européenne des Satellites ' RCA Astro -built satellite, Astra 1A. Just over six months after BSB's launch, Sky merged with BSB. The IBA
3124-481: The new Independent Local Radio (ILR) stations. The Independent Television Commission formally replaced the IBA on 1 January 1991 in regulatory terms; however, the authority itself was not officially dissolved until 2003. The IBA appointed and regulated a number of regional programme TV contractors and local radio contractors, and built and operated the network of transmitters distributing these programmes through its Engineering Division. It established and part-funded
3195-518: The new senior BSkyB executive roles were given to Sky personnel with many BSB leaving the company. In April the nine Sky/BSB channels had been condensed into five, with EuroSport being dropped soon after the Sky Sports launch. Chisholm also renegotiated the merged company's expensive deals with the Hollywood studios, slashing the minimum guaranteed payments. The defunct Marcopolo I satellite
3266-426: The open market. On 26 September 2018, Fox subsequently announced its intent to sell all of its shares in Sky plc to Comcast for £12 billion. On 4 October 2018, Fox completed the sale of their shares, giving Comcast a 76.8% controlling stake at the time. On 12 October 2018, Comcast announced it would compulsorily acquire the rest of Sky after its bid gained acceptances from 95.3% of the broadcaster's shareholders with
3337-415: The proposed takeover. The resulting reaction forced News Corp. to withdraw its bid for the company in July 2011. The scandal forced the resignation of James Murdoch , who was the chairman of both BSkyB and News International, from his executive positions in the UK, with Nicholas Ferguson taking over as Chairman of BSkyB. In September 2012, Ofcom ruled that BSkyB was still fit to hold broadcast licenses in
3408-505: The quality of programme content and the technical quality of programme play-out. On 19 January 1972, the British government announced the lifting of all restrictions and limits on the number of broadcasting hours per day that both the BBC and ITV could air. Until 1972, both the BBC and ITV were limited to how many normal programming hours they could air during the course of each day – by 1971 it
3479-472: The radio and television trade. These broadcasts were shown on ITV until May 1983 after which they were shown on Channel 4 and S4C, with the final broadcast taking place on 31 July 1990. Regional programming on ITV was a major concern for the IBA, particularly in the 1980 franchise round. The IBA was determined each franchise provided the best possible local service, so the South of England transmission region
3550-413: The receiver industry and the general public offering information and advice about the transmitter networks and reception issues. Its lasting legacy is a set of IBA Technical Reviews published over a period of 16 years from 1972 to 1988. The complete set of these reviews, as well as some other documents and records, is available for free download. The reviews were primarily written by the technical staff of
3621-841: The recent sexual harassment controversies that had emerged at the US Fox News Channel , as there was no evidence to the contrary. Avaaz opposed Ofcom's opinion, stating that the regulator "made mistake after mistake in deciding to give the Murdochs a clean bill of health to take over more of our media". The Walt Disney Company announced on 14 December 2017 that it would acquire 21st Century Fox , including its stake in Sky plc but barring specific US assets. Fox stated that this purchase would "not alter [its] full commitment and obligation to conclude our proposed transaction". Analysts suggested that Disney's proposed transaction could ease regulatory concerns over Fox's purchase of Sky, as
SECTION 50
#17327719084963692-406: The restrictions were lifted. Schools programming were now placed in a new 2.5 hour slot each weekday from 9.30am along with the continued production of religious programming and adult education. There were also limits on the value of prizes that could be given away – this dated from the broadcast of the UK version of Twenty-One in 1958 in which a contestant won enough money to buy both a car and
3763-531: The reviews but, after the abolition of the IBA, NTL continued to contribute significantly to the development and implementation of the successor technology that underlies modern Freeview transmissions. Copyright in these documents originally vested in the IBA. On its abolition, its assets were distributed between the Independent Television Commission (ITC) and NTL, each of which has subsequently been absorbed by other bodies. The ITC
3834-443: The right for the new digital terrestrial network. In June, it was awarded the right to start the service, ONdigital , under the condition BSkyB withdrew from the group's bid. In February 2003 BSkyB wished to renegotiate its deal with MTV to reduce its payment from £20m. Chief executive Tony Ball said "We're definitely prepared to stare them down if we can't get a sensible deal. MTV, and other channels, have done particularly well out of
3905-409: The table. In February 2019, The Economist magazine claimed that Sky enjoys gross margins of 50%. ITV plc has been the subject of a flurry of rumoured take-over and merger bids since it was formed. For example, on 9 November 2006, NTL announced that it had approached ITV plc about a proposed merger. The merger was effectively blocked by BSkyB on 17 November 2006 when it controversially bought
3976-716: The weekly losses had been reduced to £1.5M a week, Rupert Murdoch said "there were strong financial marketing and political reason[s] for making the compromise merger instead of letting BSB die. Many of the lessons had been learnt with more than half the running cost of the combined company". Further cuts in losses were a direct result of 313,000 new customers joining during the first half of 1991. By March 1992, BSkyB posted its first operating profits, of £100,000 per week, with £3.8 million weekly from subscriptions and £1 million from advertising, but continued to be burdened with £1.28 billion of debt. Stockbroker firm James Capel forecast BSkyB would still be indebted in 2000. In
4047-566: Was announced as his successor. This appointment caused allegations of nepotism from shareholders. On 7 December 2007, it was announced that Rupert Murdoch would be stepping down as BSkyB's non-executive chairman and would be replaced by his son, James . In turn, James stepped down as CEO of BSkyB, to be replaced by Jeremy Darroch . It was estimated that Darroch would earn around £38.2 million from selling Sky to Comcast. He sold his 775,772 shares in Sky worth £13.4 million and would cash in on previously awarded bonus shares. In January 2021, it
4118-440: Was announced that Darroch would be standing down as CEO, and will become executive chairman of Sky for the remainder of 2021, and will then be an advisor to the company. He will be succeeded as CEO by Dana Strong . The current company directors are Comcast personnel: Michael J Cavanagh (Comcast senior VP & CFO), Arthur R Block (legal counsel) and David L Cohen (senior VP & CDO). Financial results have been as shown in
4189-558: Was contingent on the divestiture of Sky News. On 12 June 2018, Comcast announced a US$ 65 billion counter-offer to acquire the 21st Century Fox assets that Disney had offered to purchase. However, Fox subsequently agreed to an increased, US$ 71.3 billion offer from Disney instead. On 15 June 2018, the European Commission gave antitrust clearance to Comcast's offer to purchase Sky, citing that in terms of their current assets in Europe, there would be limited impact on competition. Comcast included
4260-774: Was disbanded as part of the Broadcasting Act 1990 , being replaced on New Year's Day 1991 by the Independent Television Commission (ITC) (which also absorbed the Cable Authority), and the Radio Authority (RAu), which have since been merged with other regulators such as the Broadcasting Standards Commission (BSC) and Oftel (Office of Telecommunications) to form one regulator, Ofcom . All of
4331-409: Was formed by the merger of Sky Television and British Satellite Broadcasting on 2 November 1990. Both companies had begun to struggle financially and were suffering financial losses as they competed against each other for viewers. The Guardian later characterised the merger as "effectively a takeover by News Corporation". The merger was investigated by the Office of Fair Trading and was cleared
SECTION 60
#17327719084964402-471: Was given the highlights of most of the matches, while BSkyB paid £304m for the Premier League rights, giving them a monopoly of all live matches, up to 60 per year from the 1992–93 season. Murdoch has described sport as a "battering ram" for pay-television, providing a strong customer base. A few weeks after the deal, ITV went to the High court to get an injunction as it believed their details were leaked before
4473-603: Was in talks with its largest shareholder, 21st Century Fox , about acquiring 21st Century Fox's 57.4% stake in Sky Deutschland and its 100% stake in Sky Italia . The enlarged company (dubbed "Sky Europe" in the media) would consolidate 21st Century Fox's European digital TV assets into one company. The £4.9 billion takeover deal was formally announced on 25 July, where BSkyB would acquire 21st Century Fox's stakes in Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia. BSkyB also made
4544-708: Was launched in Germany and Austria in 2017, and Switzerland in 2018. Sky Group Sky Group Limited is a British media and telecommunications conglomerate, which is a subsidiary of the American conglomerate Comcast , and headquartered in London , England. It has operations in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy. Sky is Europe's largest media company and pay-TV broadcaster by revenue (as of 2018 ), with 23 million subscribers and more than 31,000 employees as of 2019. The company
4615-472: Was limited to 8 hours per day, with exemptions for schools, adult educational, religious programming, state occasions and outdoor sporting coverage. For ITV this meant they could start a proper daytime television schedule, allowing the smaller ITV companies to produce and sell programming to the network. The IBA ensured that along with the new daytime schedules which launched on Monday 16 October 1972 that their public service remit programming would continue after
4686-546: Was more robust than an extension of the existing PAL system used for terrestrial broadcasts. E&D's engineers also designed and built some of the first digital audio equipment for satellite broadcasting including systems using data packets. E&D's engineers made many important contributions to digital television data-rate reduction whereby the encoding of a standard analogue PAL colour signal requiring some 130 Megabits/second has been reduced to less than 4 Megabits/second as used on current digital television broadcasting . In
4757-435: Was only asked every other week, so as not to break the regulatory £6,000/week maximum. The Independent Television Commission abolished such limits in 1993. Throughout its history until just before its demise, the IBA put out a short weekly programme under the title Engineering Announcements , transmitted outside normal programme hours, and not otherwise advertised. These provided valuable technical information for members of
4828-419: Was responsible for much leading-edge research into broadcasting technology as well as being responsible for the design and manufacture of specialist equipment that could not be procured from commercial manufacturers. In particular, the IBA's E&D Department developed SABRE (Steerable Adaptable Broadcast Receiving Equipment) that enabled mainland broadcast television channels to be received for re-broadcasting in
4899-517: Was sold in December 1993 to Sweden's NSAB , and Marcopolo II went to Norway's Telenor in July 1992 after the Independent Television Commission (ITC) was unable to find new companies to take over the BSB licences and compete with BSkyB. News International received 50%, Pearson PLC 17.5%, Chargeurs 17.5%, Granada 12%, Reed International 2% of the new shares in the company. By September 1991,
4970-533: Was split in two, with the successful applicant required to provide separate news services for the South and South East, while in the Midlands ATV 's commitment to regional output in the Midlands had been a long-running issue for the IBA; in 1980, they were allowed to keep their franchise, but with several tough conditions. The Experimental and Development Department, as part of the IBA's Engineering Division,
5041-607: Was the regulatory body in the United Kingdom for commercial television ( ITV and Channel 4 and limited satellite television regulation – cable television was the responsibility of the Cable Authority ) – and commercial and independent radio broadcasts. The IBA came into being when the Sound Broadcasting Act 1972 gave the Independent Television Authority responsibility for organising
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