80-718: Portland TV was a British adult television company that provided subscription and pay-per-view services to UK audiences on the Sky UK , Virgin TV and Freeview platforms. The company was established in London Docklands in 1995 as the adult broadcasting division of the British publishing group Northern & Shell . At one point, Portland owned its own broadcasting facilities, but they were transferred to Channel 5 , which Northern & Shell also then owned. In 2016, Portland TV
160-568: A Sky+ PVR with their service; waiving the charge for subscribers whose package included two or more premium channels. This changed as of 1 July 2007, and now customers that subscribe to any Sky package have Sky+ included at no extra charge. Customers that do not subscribe to Sky's channels can still pay a monthly fee to enable Sky+ functions. In September 2007, Sky launched a new TV advertising campaign targeting Sky+ at women. As of 31 March 2008, Sky had 3,393,000 Sky+ users. British Satellite Broadcasting British Satellite Broadcasting plc (BSB)
240-952: A day after Setanta Sports confirmed that it would launch in March as a subscription service on the digital terrestrial platform, and on the same day that NTL's services re-branded as Virgin Media . However, industry sources believe Sky will be forced to shelve plans to withdraw its channels from Freeview and replace them with subscription channels, due to possible lost advertising revenue. Sky initially faced increased competition from telecommunications providers to deliver pay television services over existing telephone lines using ADSL . Such providers are able to offer " triple play " or " quadruple play " packages combining landline telephone, broadband Internet, mobile telephone and pay television services. To compete with these providers, in October 2005, Sky bought
320-627: A deal with Sky to bring some of its shows to the PlayStation Store Video Store. Users are able buy individual TV episodes in SD or HD. On 3 December 2014, Sky Go became available on the PlayStation 4 under the name "TV from Sky", followed by the PlayStation 3 on 29 January 2015. Sky Store has a library of films from Sky Cinema that can be rented or bought, either via an app or physical DVD/Blu-ray copies by post. Sky Store
400-534: A dish of under 1.2 metres, which would require individual planning permission for each customer. Lazard Brothers , the Pearson subsidiary responsible for BSB's first fundraising memorandum, reportedly regarded Astra as technology-led rather than programming-led and, therefore, an unlikely threat. The stage was set for a dramatic confrontation: BSB, expecting to be the United Kingdom's only satellite service,
480-509: A few months, the BBC started talking with the IBA about a joint project to help cover the cost. Subsequently, the government allowed the IBA to bring in private companies to help cover the costs (dubbed as the "Club of 21"): Within a year, the consortium made it clear that the original launch date of 1986 would be delayed to 1989, while also asking the government to allow it to tender out the building of
560-521: A large marble-effect, glass-clad office building at 346 Queenstown Road, facing Battersea Park in the London Borough of Wandsworth . It was built in 1987–1988 and completed in 1989 by Peter Argyrou Associates at a cost of £26 million. The headquarters were vacated, leading to redundancy for most BSB staff with only a few moving to work at Sky Television 's studios in Isleworth . The building
640-430: A licence to operate three channels. BSB forecast 400,000 homes would be equipped during its first year, but some doubts were cast as to whether this was possible. The Cable Authority welcomed the service, believing it would encourage more users, especially with its dedicated movie network. The original four satellite channels were: Around the time of the licence award, Amstrad withdrew its backing, as they believed it
720-547: A major media company by the end of the decade, notably owning all the television broadcasting rights for the Premier League and almost all the domestic rights of Hollywood films. Following BSkyB's acquisition of Sky Italia and a majority interest in Sky Deutschland in 2014, its holding company British Sky Broadcasting Group plc changed its name to Sky plc (now Sky Group Limited ). The UK subsidiary's name
800-399: A microprocessor. Upgrade kits from companies such as Trac Satellite allowed re-tuning whilst other kits allowed fully working menu systems and decoding of 'soft' encrypted channels, although this required the receiver to have one of the later MAC chipsets. Some kits even included smart card readers and full D2-MAC decoding capability. Marco Polo House (originally stylised as "Marcopolo") was
880-656: A mixture of content from other Sky Channels, and Sky Max , showing Sky's original programming and entertainment previously shown on Sky One. On 7 October 2021, Sky announced a new all-in-one TV set called Sky Glass. It is designed to support streaming of Sky TV and streaming service shows over WiFi, eliminating the need for a satellite dish or box. It launched on 18 October 2021, with three sizes available: 43-inch, 55-inch and 65-inch. In October 2022, Comcast announced that it had written off US$ 8.6 billion of its valuation of Sky, with its third-quarter sales dropping 14.7 percent to $ 4.3 bn In October 2005, Sky agreed to purchase
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#1732783358583960-401: A new type of flat-plate satellite antenna called a " squarial " (i.e., "square aerial"). The illustrative model shown to the press was a dummy and BSB commissioned a working version under 45 cm (18") wide. A conventional dish of the same diameter was also available. The company had serious technical problems with the development of ITT 's D-MAC silicon chips needed for its MAC receivers. BSB
1040-564: A part of the ONdigital consortium, thereby making them a competitor by default, Sky was able to join ITV Digital's free-to-air replacement, Freeview , in which it holds an equal stake with the BBC , ITV , Channel 4 and Arqiva . Prior to October 2005, three Sky channels were available on this platform: Sky News , Sky Three , and Sky Sports News . Initially, Sky provided Sky Travel to
1120-560: A report drawn up by John Jackson, by inviting the private-sector companies to apply for a new television franchise via satellite to provide a commercial service on the IBA's three DBS channels (of the five in total allocated to the United Kingdom). One of the conditions imposed on applicants by the IBA was that they use a new untried transmission standard, D-MAC . This was part of the European Communities ' support for
1200-493: A royalty-sharing agreement for all television and set-top boxes sold. The IBA was not directed to be an "economic regulator", so the free market in lower power satellite bandwidth satellites (such as SES Astra ) leveraged the benefits of the existing lower cost PAL transmissions with pre-existing set-top box technology. The IBA was rendered helpless and Murdoch voluntarily agreed to adhere to those Broadcasting Standards Commission rules relating to non-economic matters, such as
1280-426: A safe disposal orbit in 2003 as it reached the normal end of its operational life when fuel ran out. Marcopolo 2 was operated (as Thor 1 ) until January 2002 and disposed of successfully. A new television transmission system, Multiplexed Analogue Components , was originally developed for high-definition television but European manufacturers developed patented variants and successfully lobbied regulators such that it
1360-472: A subscription to watch the channels. After the two companies merged, subscribers could get access to both channels, and two years later, the sports channel Sky Sports also became encrypted. In the autumn of 1991, talks were held for the broadcast rights for Premier League for five years, from the 1992 season. ITV were the current rights holders and fought hard to retain the new rights. ITV had increased its offer from £18m to £34m per year to keep control of
1440-482: A variant, D-MAC , which had marginal audio channel improvements, and insisted on its use by the satellite service to be licensed by itself. In the rest of Europe, satellite television manufacturers standardised on another variant, D2-MAC , which used less bandwidth and was compatible with the extensive existing European cable systems. With the launch of BSB, the IBA became a member of the secret "MAC Club" of European organisations which owned patents on MAC variants and had
1520-403: Is available on Sky Q boxes as well as through apps on devices such as computers and mobile devices. It is available to anyone with a compatible device and does not require a Sky TV subscription. An over-the-top contract-free television service from Sky. The service is provided on a NOW device or through an app on selected computers, mobile devices, set-top boxes and smart TVs. NOW is separate from
1600-526: Is free for new or existing Sky TV customers using the Sky Mobile network. Since it was launched Sky has reduced the cost of its tariffs with, as of March 2021, 2GB now starting for £6.00 per month, 8GB for £10.00 per month, 10GB for £12.00 per month, 25GB for £15.00 per month, 30GB for £20 per month and 60GB for £30 has and they have also expanded the Sky VIP offering to mobile plans. They have also expanded
1680-541: Is the UK's largest pay-TV broadcaster, with 12.7 million customers as of the end of 2019 for its digital satellite TV platform. Sky's flagship products are Sky Q and the internet-based Sky Glass, and its flagship channels are Sky Showcase , Sky Max , and Sky Atlantic . Formed as British Sky Broadcasting ( BSkyB ) in November 1990 through the merger of Sky Television and British Satellite Broadcasting , it grew into
SECTION 20
#17327833585831760-523: The Astra system and broadcast in PAL with analogue sound. BSB had been aware of the impending launch of Astra when it submitted its proposal to the IBA in 1986 but had discounted it, partly on advice from the IBA that it would not have been possible for Sky to securely scramble an analogue PAL signal and a prediction that satisfactory reception from a medium-powered satellite such as Astra would not be possible with
1840-613: The European Union regulations with potentially superior picture sharpness, digital stereo sound, and the potential to show widescreen programming; rather than the existing PAL system. BSB claimed that Sky's PAL pictures would be too degraded by satellite transmission, and that in any case, BSB would broadcast superior programming. SES (later operators of the O3b data satellites and others with names including AMC , Ciel , NSS , QuetzSat , YahSat and SES , and formerly at that time,
1920-469: The ONdigital digital terrestrial television service (later renamed ITV Digital ). ITV Digital failed for numerous reasons, including, but not limited to numerous administrative and technical failures, nervous investors after a large downturn in the advertising market and the dot com crash , and Sky's aggressive marketing and domination of premium sporting rights. While Sky had been excluded from being
2000-573: The Sky Digibox , using the Slogans "What do you want to watch?", "Entertainment your way" and the current slogan "Believe in Better" . This was followed by Sky+, a digital video recorder with an internal hard drive which allows viewers to 'pause live television' (by switching from a live feed to a paused real-time recording that can be restarted at any point) and schedule programs to record in
2080-542: The United Kingdom . On 1 March 2013, it was announced that Sky would buy O2 's and Be 's broadband services from Telefónica for £180 million upfront plus another £20 million once customers have been transferred. Telefónica said the deal would allow it to concentrate on providing better mobile services, including rolling out 4G. Sky offers broadband using the Openreach network. Customer premises connect to
2160-517: The "piggybank" facility to allow customers to "cash-in" piggybank data to bring the monthly cost of a phone down. Sky Mobile launched in Ireland in September 2024, and also announced their plans to expand to Italy. As of 30 March 2017, Sky Mobile is offering handset deals. Products are available from manufacturers such as Samsung , Sony and Apple . Sky launched with a set-top box known as
2240-411: The 50:50 merged venture having an effective quasi-monopoly on British satellite pay-television. From a United Kingdom perspective, British Satellite Broadcasting's existence prevented 100% of these profits being made by News International, reducing Murdoch's ability to influence government policy. At one stage of the saga, News International was facing dismemberment at the hands of its bankers. Following
2320-565: The Astra TV satellite operator), had no regulatory permission to broadcast, had plans (initially) for only one satellite with no backup, and the European satellite launch vehicle Ariane suffered repeated failures. However, SES used the resulting delay time to re-engineer the satellite to reduce the dish size needed, which would otherwise have been larger than 60 cm (24"). To distance itself from Sky and its dish antennas, BSB announced
2400-457: The HD-MAC high-definition television standard which was being developed by Philips and other European companies. The technology was still at the laboratory stage and was incompatible with previous standards: HD-MAC transmissions could not be received by existing television sets which used PAL or SECAM standards. The condition to use a high-power (230 watt) satellite was dropped, and no winner
2480-571: The High Court to get an injunction as it believed their bid details had been leaked before the decision was taken. ITV also asked the Office of Fair Trading to investigate since it believed Rupert Murdoch's media empire via its 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 Premier League advised BSkyB to increase its counter bid. BSkyB retained
Portland TV - Misplaced Pages Continue
2560-628: The ISP EasyNet for £211 million. At the time, EasyNet were one of the few ISPs that had made major investments in local-loop unbundling (LLU), giving Sky access to 232 unbundled telephone exchanges . The acquired EasyNet was placed under a new Sky Broadband division. In October 2007, Sky reached 1 million broadband customers and claimed to be gained one new customer every 40 seconds. By September 2009, Sky Broadband had 2.3 million customers. By July 2012 Sky Broadband had reached four million customers and had unbundled exchanges covering over 70% of
2640-694: The Irish broadcaster Setanta Sports was awarded two of the six Premier League packages that the English FA offered to broadcasters. Sky picked up the remaining four for £1.3bn. In February 2015, Sky bid £4.2bn for a package of 120 premier league games across the three seasons from 2016. This represented an increase of 70% on the previous contract and was said to be £1bn more than the company had expected to pay. The move has been followed by staff cuts, increased subscription prices (including 9% in Sky's family package) and
2720-683: The PAL system would give adequate picture quality, and that many viewers would be happy to watch Sky's more populist output as opposed to waiting for the promised quality programming pledged by BSB. Sky had launched its multichannel service from studios at an industrial estate in Isleworth , with a 10-year lease on SES transponders for an estimated £50 million without backup. BSB on the other hand, would operate from more expensive headquarters at Marco Polo House in Battersea , with construction and launch of its own satellites costing an estimated £200 million as
2800-549: The Select Committee on National Heritage, mainly for the lack of original programming on many of the new channels. BSkyB's digital service was officially launched on 1 October 1998 under the name Sky Digital, although small-scale tests were carried out before then. At this time the use of the Sky Digital brand made an important distinction between the new service and Sky's analogue services. Key selling points were
2880-573: The Sky Multichannels package, many of which broadcast additional hours on Sky Digital, Sky Digital launched several new channels that were exclusive to the digital offer. The switchover from analogue to digital proceeded relatively quickly. In 1998, there were 6 million 'multichannel' TV homes in the UK (i.e. homes that watch television other than the traditional analogue terrestrial), and over half of these homes watched television using BSkyB's analogue service. BSkyB's digital service surpassed
2960-618: The Smarter Network, with tariffs mainly focused on data rather than traditional calls & text, effectively saving consumers money in wasted unused minutes and texts. 1GB data costs £10.00 per month while 5GB costs £15.00 per month with 10GB data costing £20.00 per month. With all those data tariffs, the customer can choose from two different call & text packages with the 'Pay as you use' costing 10p per minute of calls and 10p per text message sent or £10.00 per month for Unlimited Calls & Texts. The Unlimited Calls & Texts package
3040-594: The UK's parliament heard a claim that a subscription to Sky was 'often damaging' to welfare recipients, along with alcohol, tobacco and gambling. Conservative MP Alec Shelbrooke was proposing the payments of benefits and tax credits on a "Welfare Cash Card", in the style of the American Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program , that could be used to buy only "essentials". In 2016, Sky launched its new TV and entertainment service called Sky Q . On 1 March 2018, it
3120-426: The analogue service in terms of subscribers in late 1999. By June 2000 the service had 3.6 million subscribers, which gave BSkyB 8.988 million subscribers across all platforms. This substantial growth reflected BSkyB's 34% share of viewers in multi-channel homes (up from 13.4% in 1999). BSkyB's analogue service ended in October 2001, and the digital service would eventually be marketed as just 'Sky'. By June 2005,
3200-458: The broadband Internet service provider Easynet for £211 million. This acquisition allowed Sky to start offering a Sky-branded broadband service as well as a "triple play" package combining satellite television, land-line telephone and Broadband service. Sky also offers some streaming live TV channels to a computer using Microsoft's Silverlight . In early 2012, Sky released an update to its Sky Anytime service. This update offers customers
3280-514: The broadcaster said its reach into 36% of households in the UK represented an audience of more than 25m people. The target was first announced in August 2004, and since then an additional 2.4 million customers had subscribed to Sky's direct-to-home service. Media commentators had debated whether the figure could be reached as the growth in subscriber numbers elsewhere in Europe flattened. In December,
Portland TV - Misplaced Pages Continue
3360-463: The broadcasting code by advertising R18 website content on Red Hot TV, and on the second such occasion Portland was fined £25,000 by Ofcom. Sky UK Sky UK Limited , trading as Sky , is a British broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television, internet, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers and businesses in the United Kingdom. It is a subsidiary of Sky Group and, from 2018 onwards, part of Comcast . It
3440-401: The burden of huge losses, rapidly increasing debts and ongoing startup costs. On 2 November 1990, a 50:50 merger was announced to form a single company called British Sky Broadcasting (marketed as "Sky"). Following the merger, BSkyB moved quickly to rationalise the combined channels it now owned: BSB's shareholders and Murdoch's News International made huge profits on their investments,
3520-483: The buyout. At the time, Portland was broadcasting five adult channels and two on-demand online services. In September 2020, MindGeek subsidiary MG Global Entertainment (Europe) Limited (now named Aylo Global Entertainment (Europe) Limited), who owned other adult pay-per-view networks in the United Kingdom, purchased Portland TV and merged it into their own operations. Television X was launched in 1995. Additional channels were launched as sub-brands of Television X, and
3600-509: The chance to buy and rent films from the Sky Store . On 26 September 2012, Sky relaunched its "Anytime+" on-demand-via-broadband service as "On Demand" as the BBC 's iPlayer joined the line-up of channels offering catch-up TV on the company's Sky+ HD box – linked to a router, the signal from which was recorded before viewing. The BBC was making the preceding week's programmes available alongside ITV , Channel 4 's All 4 , Channel 5 and
3680-408: The channel began Internet streaming content in 2007. Red Hot TV was launched in 2000 as an additional set of adult channels; the brand was renamed Xrated in 2017. In both 2008 and 2009, Portland was fined by Ofcom for broadcasting material equivalent to BBFC classification R18 on their Television X channels. The fines were £52,500 in total. In the same years, Portland was found to have breached
3760-502: The channels, the BBC proposed its own satellite service, but the government imposed two conditions on it: During Autumn 1983, the cost of Unisat was found to be greatly underestimated and the new Home Secretary announced the three remaining channels would be given to the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) to allow the private sector to compete against the BBC in satellite broadcasting. Within
3840-418: The clear or soft encrypted (whereby a Videocrypt decoder was required to decode, without a subscription card) before their addition to the Sky Multichannels package. Within two months of the launch, BSkyB gained 400,000 new subscribers, with the majority taking at least one premium channel as well, which helped BSkyB reach 3.5 million households by mid-1994. Michael Grade criticised the operations in front of
3920-496: The commencement of broadcasting operations. It commissioned the Hughes Aircraft Company to provide two high-powered satellites using launch vehicles from McDonnell Douglas (later United Launch Alliance ). Both companies were American and had established reputations for reliability. Hughes was the main contractor and offered a commercial space industry as the first "in-orbit delivery" on 6 August 1987. BSB's risk
4000-434: The company's business strategy to an entirely fee-based concept. The new package included four channels formerly available free-to-air , broadcasting on Astra's satellites, as well as introducing new channels. The service continued until the closure of BSkyB's analogue service on 27 September 2001, due to the expansion of the Sky Digital platform after its launch three years before. Some of the channels did broadcast either in
4080-463: The core Sky TV service. [REDACTED] On 21 October 2016, it was announced that public pre-registration for Sky's new mobile network, Sky Mobile, would take place from 31 October 2016. The network will operate as a Full MVNO , utilising the O2 radio access network infrastructure, and O2's full network speeds and 4G+. On 5 January 2017 Sky Mobile went live to the public across the UK. Coining itself as
SECTION 50
#17327833585834160-424: The dropping of the 3D channel. In September 1993, BSkyB launched Sky Multichannels which was the present digital platform's analogue predecessor. Sky Multichannels was a subscription package that gave access not only to Sky's channels but also to those of third-party broadcasters. The service started on 1 September 1993. It was based on an idea by then CEO Sam Chisholm and chairman Rupert Murdoch of converting
4240-638: The future. In later years the Sky+ box and then the Sky+ HD box replaced the original Digibox . The first photos of a prototype Sky HD box began appearing in magazines in August 2005. Sky launched HDTV services in May 2006. All Sky+ HD boxes incorporate a version of Sky+ using a 300GB, 500GB, or 1TB hard drive (of which 160GB, 250GB or 500GB are available to the user) to accommodate the necessary extra data. Sky initially charged an additional subscription fee for using
4320-506: The general public with a sixth part-time service on subscription for business users, as BSB Datavision was a subsidiary of the company which offered encrypted television sets and data reception through domestic receivers. BSB's channel line-up launched over five consecutive days in one at a time was: BSB launched its service on cable 25 March 1990 and on satellite at the end of April, with the slogan It's Smart to be Square . The launch, six months late, came 13 months after Sky 's launch. BSB
4400-434: The improvement in picture and sound quality, increased number of channels and an interactive service branded Open.... , later called Sky Active . BSkyB competed with the ONdigital (later ITV Digital ) terrestrial offering and cable services. Within 30 days, over 100,000 digiboxes had been sold, which helped bolster BSkyB's decision to give away free digiboxes and mini dishes from May 1999. In addition to most channels from
4480-576: The initial £222.5 million. After unsuccessfully offering its stake in BSB to the remaining founders, Virgin sold it to the Bond Corporation , already BSB's largest shareholder for a nominal profit. Despite the delayed launch, BSB continued to invest heavily in marketing in 1989 to minimize the effects of Sky's timing advantage. BSB also received a needed boost in June 1989 when it won the franchises for
4560-597: The network using ADSL , FTTC and FTTP . Sky Talk is a fixed-line telephone service, with options for pay-as-you-go or bundled call minutes. NOW Broadband is a brand name of low-cost broadband plans. It is associated with the Now over-the-top television service brand operated by Sky. Sky offer two security add-ons for Sky Broadband, Sky Broadband Shield and Sky Talk Shield. Sky Broadband Shield offers network-wide web filtering and security and Sky Talk Shield offers spam call blocking. Sky initially faced competition from
4640-623: The new satellite system to help reduce cost. On 15 June 1985, the project failed when consortium concluded that the cost of set-up was not justifiable. The BBC stated the costs were prohibitive because the government insisted that the "Club of 21" should pay for the costs of constructing and launching a dedicated satellite. On 2 April 1986, the IBA convinced the Home Secretary to revive the DBS project but under different conditions, broadly based on
4720-514: The number of digital subscribers increase to 7.8m, while it produced 38,375 hours of sport in 2005. In November 2005, in partnership with Vodafone , Sky Mobile TV was launched which was the UK's first commercially available mobile TV service. Vodafone live! customers with 3G -enabled handsets would receive the service. Sky's direct-to-home satellite service became available in 10 million homes in 2010, Europe's first pay-TV platform to achieve that milestone. Confirming it had reached its target,
4800-452: The partly BBC Worldwide-owned UKTV , as well as Sky's own channels. Sky Go is provided free of charge for Sky (satellite TV) subscribers and allows them to watch channels live and on-demand through an internet connection on a computer or mobile device. On 29 May 2009, it was confirmed that Sky Go would be made available on the Xbox 360 . In November 2011 Sony Computer Entertainment struck
4880-534: The planned £625 million it required to operate up to 1993. Virgin pulled out of the BSB consortium in December 1988, ostensibly because it was going private again and had become increasingly concerned about BSB's mounting costs. The film-rights battle proved to be the final straw for Virgin since it would necessitate a "supplementary first round" of financing of £131 million in January earlier that year in addition to
SECTION 60
#17327833585834960-633: The rest of Sky after its bid gained acceptance from 95.3% of the broadcaster's shareholders with the company being delisted by early 2019. Sky was delisted on 7 November 2018 after Comcast acquired all remaining shares. On 17 September 2020, Sky Arts became the first premium Sky channel to become available on the free to air terrestrial Freeview service, joining Sky News and a couple of channels which trace their lineage back to Flextech ( Pick and Challenge ). On 28 July 2021, Sky announced that its flagship channel Sky One would shut down on 1 September, to be replaced by two channels; Sky Showcase , showing
5040-490: The rights paying £670m 1997–2001 deal, but was challenged by ONdigital for the rights from 2001 to 2004, thus were forced to £1.1 billion which gave them 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,
5120-417: The rights. BSkyB joined forces with the BBC to make a counter bid. The BBC was given the highlights of most of the matches, while BSkyB paying £304m for the Premier League rights, would give them a monopoly of all live matches, up to 60 per year from the 1992 season. Murdoch described sport as a "battering ram" for pay television, providing a strong customer base. A few weeks after the deal, ITV went to
5200-605: The second of which was a backup. When BSB finally went on air in March 1990 (13 months after Sky), the company's technical problems were resolved and its programming was critically acclaimed. However, its D-MAC receivers were more expensive than Sky's PAL equivalents and incompatible with them. Many potential customers compared the competition between the rival satellite companies to the format war between VHS and Betamax recorders, and chose to wait and see which company would win outright in order to avoid buying potentially obsolete equipment. Both BSB and Sky had begun to struggle with
5280-481: The service. However, this was replaced by Sky Three on 31 October 2005, which was itself later re-branded as 'Pick TV' in 2011. On 8 February 2007, Sky announced its intention to replace its three free-to-air digital terrestrial channels with four subscription channels. It was proposed that these channels would offer a range of content from the Sky portfolio including sports (including English Premier League Football), films, entertainment and news. The announcement came
5360-600: The takeover of Sky by Comcast in October 2018, Murdoch was no longer involved in British television but retained his newspaper assets through News Corp . As the company focused on the Astra system which was not subject to IBA regulation, the Marcopolo satellites were eventually withdrawn and later sold (Marcopolo 1 on 21 December 1993 to NSAB of Sweden and Marcopolo 2 on 1 July 1992 to Telenor of Norway). NSAB operated Marcopolo 1 (as Sirius 1) until successfully sending it to
5440-650: The technology used. Ironically the past-deadline encryption system in the D-MAC silicon chip technology was one primary reason for BSB having to merge with Sky, and hence the Far Eastern television manufacturers had largely unfettered access to the market when MAC was wound down in favour of PAL. After the merger, BSB D-MAC receivers were sold off cheaply and some enthusiasts modified them to allow reception of D2-MAC services available on other satellites. BSB receivers, Ferguson in particular, could be modified by replacing
5520-485: The two remaining British high-powered DBS channels, beating six other bidders when the BBC dropped all plans for use of its allocated channels. BSB revised its line-up to include separate channels for films, sports, pop music, general entertainment and current affairs. Unfortunately, this increased the size of the dishes which the public had to purchase from 25 to 35–40 centimetres; subsidies from BSB helped maintain retail prices at £250. There were five satellite channels for
5600-624: Was a television company, based in London, that provided direct broadcast satellite television services to the United Kingdom. It started broadcasting on 25 March 1990. The company was merged with Sky Television plc on 2 November 1990 to form British Sky Broadcasting . In January 1977, the World Administrative Radio Conference assigned each country five high-powered direct broadcast by satellite channels for domestic use. In 1982, after being awarded two of
5680-555: Was adopted by the Commission of the European Communities as the standard for all direct broadcast satellites. This had the effect that the low-cost non-European manufacturers would not only have to pay royalties to the manufacturers, but would also not have direct access to the technology, and hence would always be behind with new developments. In the United Kingdom, the Independent Broadcasting Authority developed
5760-697: Was changed from British Sky Broadcasting Limited to Sky UK Limited, and continuing to trade as "Sky". Sky UK Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of Comcast -owned Sky Group, with its current company directors (including that of Sky Ireland ) being Executive Vice-president Stephen van Rooyen Its corporate headquarters are at the Sky Studios in Isleworth . The present service can trace its heritage back to 1990, when BSkyB's predecessors Sky Television and British Satellite Broadcasting encrypted their respective film channels – Sky Movies and The Movie Channel which required viewers to get decoding equipment and
5840-534: Was due to start broadcasting in September 1989 but was delayed by problems with the supply of receiving equipment and because BSB wanted to avoid Sky's experience of launching when most shops had no equipment to sell. BSB claimed to have around 750,000 subscriptions while Sky had extended its reach into more than 1.5 million homes. It was believed both companies could break even if subscriptions reached three million households, with most analysts expecting this to be reached in 1992. Sky's head start over BSB proved that
5920-447: Was faced with an aggressive drive by Murdoch's Sky to be the first service to launch. As Britain's official satellite television provider, BSB had high hopes as the company planned to provide a mixture of highbrow programming and popular entertainment, from arts and opera to blockbuster movies and music videos. The service would also be technically superior, broadcasting in the D-MAC (Multiplexed Analogue Components type D) system dictated by
6000-422: Was not possible to sell a satellite dish and D-MAC standard receiver for £250. Australian businessman Alan Bond joined the consortium along with Reed Elsevier , Chargeurs , Next and London Merchant Securities , amongst others. BSB earmarked the bulk of the first round of financing for buying and launching two satellites (for redundancy and provision of further channels later) and planned a second round close to
6080-405: Was precluded from buying a foreign satellite system. The IBA received five major contenders with serious bids for the direct broadcast satellite franchises. It also received submissions from The Children's Channel and ITN to make sure their programmes were used on any successful bid: British Satellite Broadcasting won the 15-year franchise on 11 December 1986 to operate the DBS system, with
6160-423: Was reduced because payments became due only after the satellites were launched and operational. On 8 June 1988, rival tycoon Rupert Murdoch – having failed to gain regulatory approval for his satellite service to become part of the BSB consortium – announced that his pan-European television station Sky Channel , would be relaunched as a four-channel, United Kingdom-based service called Sky Television , using
6240-529: Was reported that Sky UK had concluded successful negotiations with Netflix to offer Sky subscribers access to its international streaming service. Comcast , the largest cable TV provider in the United States, outbid 21st Century Fox , on 22 September 2018 in an auction for control of Sky UK. On 4 October 2018, Fox sold their stake to Comcast, giving the latter a 76.8% controlling stake. On 12 October 2018, Comcast announced it will compulsorily acquire
6320-434: Was sold by Northern & Shell in a management buy-out, becoming wholly owned by Neon X, in a deal that saw Northern & Shell's complete departure from involvement in the UK television industry. Portland was reportedly sold for less than £1 million after contributing less than two per cent of group revenues per year over the previous three years, or about £9 million per annum. Portland's managing director, Chris Ratcliff, led
6400-673: Was still hoping to launch in September 1989 but eventually had to admit that the launch would be delayed. By 22 July 1988 in a bid to gain more viewers, BSB and the BBC prepared a bid for a four-year deal for the rights to broadcast top league football, outbidding ITV's £44 million offer. BSB had also committed about £400 million to tie up the film libraries of Paramount , Universal , Columbia and MGM / United Artists , with total up-front payments of about £85 million. On 1 February 1989, BSB's costs had started to climb, reaching £354 million, while chief executive Anthony Simonds-Gooding denied that BSB had gone over budget and would require more than
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