Sky on the defence

[Satellite News]

In the wake of the Freesat launch, the COO of BSkyB, Mike Darcey, has been putting the case for Sky against that of the Freesat version, which is a partnership between BBC and ITV, although there are other channels either involved or planning to get involved soon. The issue is going to be when ITV launch [...]

More: Sky on the defence

[Yorks]

Originally Posted by Satellite News

Sky believe that not allowing Sky viewers to have ITV HD is a deliberate act in order to keep the free to air content from their 500,000 HD subscribers.

More: Sky on the defence

Wow - clever old Sky to work that one out.
It will be interesting to see if any more HD channels that appear on Freesat in the future are also going to be precluded from the Sky platform - unless Rupert dips his hand in his pocket.

[kerrywez]

Well he dipped it in to pay hackers and people to spread the hacks of other providers, so he might just do that Yorks. His greed knows no bounds, so if he has to spend to accumulate he will do just that.

The more we get from FreeSat the better for everyone, Sly shbscribers and we not believers.

Very best regards Wez

[Yorks]

Let's hope that ITV - and maybe others in the future - see that they get paid a fair price for their wares, just as Sly did.

[kerrywez]

The way I look at it, and I suppose ITV would look at the same, why pay Murdock for the EPG when you can use the EPG on FreeSat and pay nothing near what they would have to pay Sly and have far more revenue from the ads, seems like a no brainer to me.

I might be wrong, but even if I am, ITV have still got their own back on Sly. I don't see anything in that statement from Sly in way of an apology to Virgin for their dispute and they have the cheek to say that ITV are keeping their HD channel from all those Sly customers, who they fail to state they are charging for the privilege of receiving HD channels.

Very best regards Wez

[Yorks]

Yes. If Freesat takes off, as you say there is potentially a wide audience to attract advertising revenue.
This is why E4 and More4 decided to go FTA on DTT seeing the auidience rapidly expanding. All good news for the consumer - I can put up with adverts if I'm not paying for them.

[Analoguesat]

This wouldnt be the same Sky who have been making things difficult for Setanta to launch an HD channel would it?

(Apparently they have been refusing to provide scrambling for an HD service)

[lincsat]

But didn't ITV throw their toys out of the pram when they were excluded from SKY Digital at launch. They wanted Sky to pay for their satellite capacity and get free EPG access claiming that as a PSB, they should have "Must Carry" status.

No wonder that Sky News is excluded from the Freesat EPG, maybe Sky will come back with making Sky News FTV and launching a FTV Sky3 HD.

One thing for sure - it's not Sky or Freesat but the viewers that will suffer, having to buy multiple boxes to get all the channels.

[kerrywez]

I won't be worried, I would never have Sly back, they are a complete rubbish provider. As for Sly 3 HD, who wants a HD channel which has advertisements on half the time, during the day they have holiday ads on for 1/2 an hour. Sly news would be no great loss either, BBC news has always been and will always be a better news service, Sly do their news as they do their programming, repeat everything till everyone is sick looking at the same thing.

Sly will end the losers I really do hope, they have a monopoly and should never have been allowed to destroy the opposition, ITV Digital, and get away with it, but the UK is rotten to the core when it comes to backhanders and that will be the reason.

Very best regards Wez

[lincsat]

I guess it wouldn't do to have a part-time HD channel (Like BBC HD) or an advertising supported channel (Like ITV HD & 4 HD).

This is not aimed at anyone in particular, but I really don't understand why so many people are Sky bashers, they have one of the best Pay TV platforms outside the USA - Yes, they are expensive and have restrictive practices, but that's a sign of success. Remember that ITV have received more fines for there business practices than Sky

Ideally, there would be competition with multiple platforms all having the same channels, but that's unlikely to ever happen.

When Platforms have exclusive channels, it's the customer that suffers, having to pay for 2 (or more) packages to get all channels - a monopoly is better IMHO