Sky UK Limited

Logo used since 1 October 2020
Formerly	British Sky Broadcasting Ltd (BSkyB)
Company type	Subsidiary
Industry	Mass media
Founded	2 November 1990; 33 years ago (1990-11-02) (as British Sky Broadcasting)
Headquarters	London, England[1]
Area served	United Kingdom Ireland
Key people	Dana Strong (CEO)
Services	Broadband Video on demand Broadcasting Satellite IPTV Internet Television production Mobile
Parent	Sky Group
Subsidiaries	Sky Ireland The Cloud Sky Broadband Sky Home Communications Now TV Sky Subscriber Services Sky In-Home Services
Website	sky.com

Sky UK Limited, doing business 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 is the UK's largest pay-TV broadcaster, with 12.7 million customers as of the end of 2019^[2] 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,^[3] it grew into 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.^[4] 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).^[5] The UK subsidiary's name 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.^[6]

History

Origins

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 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.

Premier League football

In the autumn of 1991, talks were held for the broadcast rights for Premier League for five years, from the 1992 season.^[7] 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 the rights.^[8] BSkyB joined forces with the BBC^[9] 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.^[10] Murdoch described sport as a "battering ram" for pay television, providing a strong customer base.^[11] A few weeks after the deal, ITV went to 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.^[12] 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.^[13]

BSkyB retained the rights paying £670m 1997–2001 deal, but was challenged by ONdigital^[14] for the rights from 2001 to 2004, thus were forced to £1.1 billion which gave them 66 live games a year.^[15]

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, 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.^[16] 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 the dropping of the 3D channel.

Sky Multichannels

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 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.^[17] The service continued until the closure of BSkyB's analogue service on 27 September 2001,^[18] due to the expansion of the Sky Digital platform after its launch three years before. Some of the channels did broadcast either in 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.^[19][20] Within two months of the launch, BSkyB gained 400,000 new subscribers, with the majority taking at least one premium channel as well,^[21] which helped BSkyB reach 3.5 million households by mid-1994. Michael Grade criticised the operations in front of the Select Committee on National Heritage, mainly for the lack of original programming on many of the new channels.^[22]

Launch of Sky Digital

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 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 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 the analogue service in terms of subscribers in late 1999.^[23]

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).^[24]

BSkyB's analogue service ended in October 2001, and the digital service would eventually be marketed as just 'Sky'.

By June 2005, the number of digital subscribers increase to 7.8m, while it produced 38,375 hours of sport in 2005.^[25]

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.^[26]

2010s

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, 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.^[27]

In December, 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".^[28]

In 2016, Sky launched its new TV and entertainment service called Sky Q.

On 1 March 2018, it was reported that Sky UK had concluded successful negotiations with Netflix to offer Sky subscribers access to its international streaming service.^[29][30]

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.^[31] On 12 October 2018, Comcast announced it will compulsorily acquire 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.^[32] Sky was delisted on 7 November 2018 after Comcast acquired all remaining shares.^[33]

2020s

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).^[34][35]

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 a mixture of content from other Sky Channels, and Sky Max, showing Sky's original programming and entertainment previously shown on Sky One.^[36]

On 7 October 2021, Sky announced a new all-in-one TV set called Sky Glass.^[37] 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.^[38]

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 ^[39]

Internet service

History

In October 2005, Sky agreed to purchase the ISP EasyNet for £211 million. ^[40] 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.^[41] 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.^[42] By September 2009, Sky Broadband had 2.3 million customers.^[43] By July 2012 Sky Broadband had reached four million customers and had unbundled exchanges covering over 70% of the United Kingdom.^[44]

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.^[45]

Network

Sky offers broadband using the Openreach network. Customer premises connect to the network using ADSL, FTTC and FTTP.

Sky Talk

Sky Talk is a fixed-line telephone service, with options for pay-as-you-go or bundled call minutes.^[46]

NOW Broadband

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.

Additional services

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.

Television

This section needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (April 2022)

Digital terrestrial television

Sky initially faced competition from 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 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 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.^[47] The announcement came 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.^[48]

Video on demand

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 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.^[49]

In early 2012, Sky released an update to its Sky Anytime service. This update offers customers 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 the partly BBC Worldwide-owned UKTV, as well as Sky's own channels.^[50]

Sky Go

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.^[51] In November 2011 Sony Computer Entertainment struck 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.^[52] 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.^[53]

Sky Store

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 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.

NOW

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 the core Sky TV service.

Sky Mobile

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+.^[54] On 5 January 2017 Sky Mobile went live to the public across the UK. Coining itself as 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 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 the "piggybank" facility to allow customers to "cash-in" piggybank data to bring the monthly cost of a phone down.^[55]

Sky Mobile is set to launch in Ireland in the second half of 2024,^[56] and also announced their plans to expand to Italy.^[57]

As of 30 March 2017, Sky Mobile is offering handset deals. Products are available from manufacturers such as Samsung, Sony and Apple.

Products

Sky Digibox

Sky launched with a set-top box known as the Sky Digibox, using the Slogans "What do you want to watch?", "Entertainment your way" and the current slogan "Believe in Better".^[58] 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 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.^{[citation needed]} 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+

Sky initially charged an additional subscription fee for using 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.^[59]

In January 2010 Sky discontinued the Sky+ Box, limited the standard Sky Box to Multiroom upgrade only and started to issue the Sky+ HD Box as standard, thus giving all new subscribers the functions of Sky+. In February 2011 Sky discontinued the non-HD variant of its Multiroom box, offering a smaller version of the SkyHD box without Sky+ functionality.^[60]

Sky+ HDedit

Sky launched its HDTV service, Sky+ HD, on 22 May 2006. Prior to its launch, Sky claimed that 40,000 people had registered to receive the HD service. In the week before the launch, rumours started to surface that Sky was having supply issues with its set-top box (STB) from the manufacturer Thomson. On Thursday 18 May 2006, and continuing through the weekend before launch, people were reporting that Sky had either cancelled or rescheduled its installation. Finally, the BBC reported that 17,000 customers had yet to receive the service due to failed deliveries.^[61] On 31 March 2012, Sky announced the total number of homes with Sky+ HD was 4,222,000.^[62]

In early 2012, Sky released an update to its Sky Anytime service. This update offers customers the chance to buy and rent films from the Sky Store. In June 2012, Sky launched a new EPG for Sky+ HD boxes. The update included a new modernised look and improved functionality. As of 1 October 2012, Sky Anytime was rebranded as Sky On Demand which included ITV Player and Demand 5. BBC iPlayer followed in late autumn with 4oD which changed to All 4 on 30 March 2015, and launched in early 2013.^[63]

Sky 3Dedit

Sky began to broadcast programmes in 3D in April 2010. This included new 3D channels, including a Sky Sports 3D and Sky Movies 3D. Sky previously experimented with 3D broadcasting by broadcasting an Arsenal vs Manchester Unitedfootball game live in 3D in nine pubs situated throughout the United Kingdom.^[64]

Sky Qedit

On 18 November 2015, Sky announced Sky Q, a range of products and services to be available in 2016.^[65] The Sky Q range consists of three set-top boxes (Sky Q 1TB, Sky Q 2TB and Sky Q Mini), a broadband router (Sky Q Hub) and mobile applications.

The Sky Q set-top boxes introduce a new user interface, Wi-Fi hotspot functionality, Power-line and Bluetooth connectivity and a new touch-sensitive remote control.^[66] The Sky Q Mini set-top boxes connect to the Sky Q set-top boxes with a Wi-Fi or Power-line connection rather than receive their own satellite feeds. This allows all set-top boxes in a household to share recordings and other media. Sky Q Mini boxes are not capable of UHD playback due to hardware limitations.

Sky Q became available to order on 9 February 2016.

Unlike Sky, Sky+, and Sky+ HD boxes, Sky Q boxes remain the property of Sky and must be returned when the contract ends.^[67] Charges of up to £140 per item apply for unreturned items – Sky claims this charge does not buy the equipment, which must still be given back.^[68]

4K UHDedit

The Sky Q 2TB set-top box is capable of receiving and displaying 4K UHD broadcasts. HDR was added on 27 May 2020, alongside the launch of Sky Nature and Sky Documentary channels. The HLG format is to be included in a select number of UHD VoD downloads, starting with Sky Nature before being added to other channel content. UHD broadcasts started on 13 August 2016, with the first live Premier League football match of the 2016/17 season, Hull vs Leicester City. UHD broadcasts are available free of charge to Sky Q 2TB multiscreen customers with any other relevant subscriptions.^[69]

Sky Glassedit

On 11 October 2021, Sky announced an in-house smart TV range known as Sky Glass. Features include a 4K quantum dot display, integrated Dolby Atmos surround sound speakers and voice controls.^[70] Also announced was a 4K camera with motion controls, gesture support and a TV sharing feature developed in partnership with Microsoft.^[71] The TV set is designed to stream video over an internet connection; a satellite dish is therefore not required. It also includes a backup Freeview tuner in case a broadband connection is not available. Sky Glass was released on 18 October 2021 in the UK,^[72] and 25 August 2022 in Ireland.^[73]

Sky Streamedit

On 27 September 2022, Sky announced a new streaming box called Sky Stream, which was released on 18 October 2022. The service is compatible with any broadband company, however the box is registered with a specific home.^[74] Zdroj:https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=BSKYB
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