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Sky (New Zealand)

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Sky Network Television Limited
Company typePublic - NZX Code: SKT
IndustrySubscription Television
Founded1987
HeadquartersAuckland, New Zealand
Key people
John Fellet, CEO
Peter Macourt, Chairman
ProductsSky Television
Websitewww.sky.co.nz

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

Sky Television operates both a UHF terrestrial pay television service on five networks of frequencies covering around 83 percent of the population and direct broadcasting satellite(DBS) service offering around 30 channels of programming.

It first began broadcasting on terrestrial UHF channels in 1990, offering three services for sport, movies and news. It launched its digital satellite television service in 1997, which now includes such channels as BBC World, UKTV, Sky News Australia New Zealand, and local channels such as the Rugby Channel, and music video channel Juice TV. Channels in Chinese, Japanese and Korean are also offered as separate subscription channels.

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

History

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

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

Sky rapidly won long term rights from US sports network ESPN (which become a 1 percent shareholder) as well as CNN,BSkyB and HBO providing it with a supply of sports, news and movies for three channels. (SKY Sport, SKY News and SKY Movies which was later renamed HBO)

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

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

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

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

Ownership

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

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

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

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

Sky should not be confused with British Sky Broadcasting in the UK, though one of BSkyB's shareholders, News Corporation, has a 44% shareholding in SKY Network Television, following the 2005 merger.[citation needed].

In November 2005, Sky announced it had purchased the free-to-air channel Prime Television for NZ$30 million. Sky will use Prime to promote its pay content and to show delayed sports coverage.

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

Channels

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

SKY RADIO

SKY Digital Music

Other Channel


Interactive Services

  • Pay-Per-View channels.
  • Go Auto - classified auto advertising.
  • The Guide.
  • PlayinTV Games - video games.
  • MindGames - $5.95 per month.
  • DVD Unlimited - DVD rental.==Services==

Source

  • SKY Network Television Limited (2005). [1] Retrieved Jan. 1, 2006.
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