"Sky Three, Sky News and Sky Sports News will disappear from digitalterrestrial"

"Agamemnon" wrote in message
...

"Chris Vowles" LEASE
wrote in message ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6343715.stm

from this summer .... Sky Three, Sky News and Sky Sports News will
disappear from digital terrestrial ....


If they do and they are not replaced with 3 other free channels then Sky
will be in violation of its agreement to use its multiplex for Freeview,
free to air channels only.


Just how many people have bought a freeview box mainly for Sky Sports
News / Sky News / Sky Three, well they will be annoyed .....

Yes but at £20 per box - who cares?






There appear to be two strings to $ly's bow: -

1. Remove some interesting channels off freeview ($ky News in particular) to
make buying an FTA box less attractive.

2. Start marketing (or more likely giving away) free PROPRIETARY $$ky DTT
boxes, which will no doubt come with a free subscription for a while and be
slugged so as not to work well or at all when the sub' runs out. They will
probably pay existing box makers to incorporate their technology, so quite
quickly the majority of boxes on offer will be $ky only.

This will have the effect of squeezing the already tiny margins on FTA DTT
boxes, so production will largely cease and $ky will create another corner
in DTT and strengthen their corner in English language satellite TV.

The useless Competition Commission will doubtless do less than nothing
[again], or more likely be steered to do nothing by ministers anxious to
keep Rupert on side.

from this summer .... Sky Three, Sky News and Sky Sports News will
disappear from digital terrestrial ....
e Just how many people have bought a freeview box mainly for Sky Sports
News / Sky News / Sky Three, well they will be annoyed .....

Don't care about not being able to watch these three channels because I
don't watch them now, but... let's hope this doesn't set a precedent. If it
does, we could end up back with three or four free channels again.

But, no matter what, I won't be paying any extra. I'll go and read a book or
do the garden. Perhaps this is a good thing...

Androo

"R. Mark Clayton" wrote in message
...

"Agamemnon" wrote in message
...

"Chris Vowles" LEASE
wrote in message ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6343715.stm

from this summer .... Sky Three, Sky News and Sky Sports News will
disappear from digital terrestrial ....

If they do and they are not replaced with 3 other free channels then Sky
will be in violation of its agreement to use its multiplex for Freeview,
free to air channels only.

Just how many people have bought a freeview box mainly for Sky Sports
News / Sky News / Sky Three, well they will be annoyed .....

Yes but at £20 per box - who cares?

There appear to be two strings to $ly's bow: -

1. Remove some interesting channels off freeview ($ky News in particular)
to make buying an FTA box less attractive.

2. Start marketing (or more likely giving away) free PROPRIETARY $$ky DTT
boxes, which will no doubt come with a free subscription for a while and
be slugged so as not to work well or at all when the sub' runs out. They
will probably pay existing box makers to incorporate their technology, so
quite quickly the majority of boxes on offer will be $ky only.

This will have the effect of squeezing the already tiny margins on FTA DTT
boxes, so production will largely cease and $ky will create another corner
in DTT and strengthen their corner in English language satellite TV.

The useless Competition Commission will doubtless do less than nothing
[again], or more likely be steered to do nothing by ministers anxious to
keep Rupert on side.

It could have some advantages in the long run. By subsidising the new boxes
Sky would effectively be paying to upgrade the Freeview system to MPEG4. In
the short term it could prove to be a real boost for ITN. With no commercial
news channel on the millions of exisiting Freeview boxes, advertisers will
want a replacement for Sky News as soon as possible. The obvious choice is
to relaunch the ITV News Channel.

Sky cannot afford to subsidise DTT boxes with MPEG4 chips and embedded
encryption.....for the tiny market share 4 channels are likely to get them
with minimal subscription value.

This is a spoiler plain and simple - they know they are in for a fight over
their 17% share of ITV which the Competition Commission may compel them to
divest thenselves of as anti-competitive which indeed it is.If they have to
sell they will have to sell at a loss and guess whop will buy them - Virgin
Media ..one up to Branson.And more strength to his arm!

I hope that Brown tells Murdoch to get st*ffed but I fear he will aquiesce
whereas Cameron has already made it plain that he is holding Murdoch at arms
length.The Tories don't forget Murdoch's betrayal and they plan to pay him
back.....I hope they do and in large measure. "Sorry,Rupert,...the papers or
Sky ? Which do you wish to keep because you are not keeping them both any
longer!"



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"Androo" wrote in message
. uk...
from this summer .... Sky Three, Sky News and Sky Sports News will
disappear from digital terrestrial ....
e Just how many people have bought a freeview box mainly for Sky Sports
News / Sky News / Sky Three, well they will be annoyed .....

Don't care about not being able to watch these three channels because I
don't watch them now, but... let's hope this doesn't set a precedent. If
it
does, we could end up back with three or four free channels again.

Fortunately, F4 discovered that they can make more money selling
adverts than charging punters a sub. Hopefully others will have
learnt from this.

tim

On 8 Feb, 21:00, "Agamemnon" wrote:
"Andy Burns" wrote in message

...

On 08/02/2007 19:20, Agamemnon wrote:

If they do and they are not replaced with 3 other free channels then Sky
will be in violation of its agreement to use its multiplex for Freeview,
free to air channels only.

I was beginning to wonder I was alone in understanding they were obliged
to do that, If they don't want to provide 3 channels that's ok, give the
space back and let it be re-auctioned, but don't let them ringfence half
of a mux for a handful of customers on a proprietary box.

What's more why the f**k would anyone want to subscribe to a service which
only offers 4 channels when they could get Sky proper with free broadband.
Look at what happend to ITV Digital. Why would OfCom want to allow Sky to
bring that back.


Perhaps they'll nick Top-Up TV's idea of utilising a DVR/PVR/ hard
disk recorder (whatever you want to call it) to automaically catch
programs broadcast overnight.

Even if they don't perhaps part of ther plan would be to push the
service by selling all the set-top boxes with integrated DVRs so
they're a DTT version of the successful Sky Plus product.

"Mizter T" wrote in message
ps.com...
On 8 Feb, 21:00, "Agamemnon" wrote:
"Andy Burns" wrote in message

...

On 08/02/2007 19:20, Agamemnon wrote:

If they do and they are not replaced with 3 other free channels then
Sky
will be in violation of its agreement to use its multiplex for
Freeview,
free to air channels only.

I was beginning to wonder I was alone in understanding they were
obliged
to do that, If they don't want to provide 3 channels that's ok, give
the
space back and let it be re-auctioned, but don't let them ringfence
half
of a mux for a handful of customers on a proprietary box.

What's more why the f**k would anyone want to subscribe to a service
which
only offers 4 channels when they could get Sky proper with free
broadband.
Look at what happend to ITV Digital. Why would OfCom want to allow Sky to
bring that back.


Perhaps they'll nick Top-Up TV's idea of utilising a DVR/PVR/ hard
disk recorder (whatever you want to call it) to automaically catch
programs broadcast overnight.

Even if they don't perhaps part of ther plan would be to push the
service by selling all the set-top boxes with integrated DVRs so
they're a DTT version of the successful Sky Plus product.


But they'll want you to give them £10 a month for you to be able to use it.

In message om, Mizter
T writes

snip

Perhaps they'll nick Top-Up TV's idea of utilising a DVR/PVR/ hard
disk recorder (whatever you want to call it) to automaically catch
programs broadcast overnight.

Even if they don't perhaps part of ther plan would be to push the
service by selling all the set-top boxes with integrated DVRs so
they're a DTT version of the successful Sky Plus product.

AIUI, Top-Up send a selection ( theirs ) of programmes to the box,
rather than the box records OTA broadcasts.
--
Ian

On 10 Feb, 11:43, Ian wrote:
In message om, Mizter
T writes

snip

Perhaps they'll nick Top-Up TV's idea of utilising a DVR/PVR/ hard
disk recorder (whatever you want to call it) to automaically catch
programs broadcast overnight.

Even if they don't perhaps part of ther plan would be to push the
service by selling all the set-top boxes with integrated DVRs so
they're a DTT version of the successful Sky Plus product.

AIUI, Top-Up send a selection ( theirs ) of programmes to the box,
rather than the box records OTA broadcasts.
--
Ian


Of course, though the principle behind it could be utilsed so that a
Sky DTT subscriber had a number of programmes pushed onto their box
overnight, even if that merely involved automatically recording
several of the programmes broadcast overnight on one of the channels.
It would be one way of ensuring that Sky DTT subscribers had more
choice, given the fact that Sky's planned DTT subsciption offering
will only amount to four channels.

Incidentally how does the Top-Up TV service work - I had presumed that
the "pushed" programmes are broadcast on the special private TUTV
channel(s) at normal speed and the box picks them up as they are
broadcast overnight.

Presumably they could be compressed further though and brodcast to the
TUTV DVR box as if they were a file, or at double-speed if you see
what I mean. This would of course mean the TUTV DVR box would have to
be a bit cleaverer than your average DVR box, so for this reason I
would be inclined to think that the pushed programs are just broadcast
as normal on the special TUTV channels.

On 10 Feb, 03:42, "Agamemnon" wrote:
"Mizter T" wrote in message

ps.com...



On 8 Feb, 21:00, "Agamemnon" wrote:
"Andy Burns" wrote in message

...

On 08/02/2007 19:20, Agamemnon wrote:

If they do and they are not replaced with 3 other free channels then
Sky
will be in violation of its agreement to use its multiplex for
Freeview,
free to air channels only.

I was beginning to wonder I was alone in understanding they were
obliged
to do that, If they don't want to provide 3 channels that's ok, give
the
space back and let it be re-auctioned, but don't let them ringfence
half
of a mux for a handful of customers on a proprietary box.

What's more why the f**k would anyone want to subscribe to a service
which
only offers 4 channels when they could get Sky proper with free
broadband.
Look at what happend to ITV Digital. Why would OfCom want to allow Sky to
bring that back.

Perhaps they'll nick Top-Up TV's idea of utilising a DVR/PVR/ hard
disk recorder (whatever you want to call it) to automaically catch
programs broadcast overnight.

Even if they don't perhaps part of ther plan would be to push the
service by selling all the set-top boxes with integrated DVRs so
they're a DTT version of the successful Sky Plus product.

But they'll want you to give them £10 a month for you to be able to use it.


I'd say it's more likely that Sky would just want you to continue
subscribing to the Sky DTT service so you can retain use of the DVR
functionality, especially so if the initial cost to the consumer was
subsidised in some way.

All that said perhaps they wouldn't want to spoil the allure of the
full satellite Sky Plus system by launching a "Sky Plus Lite". Also
perhaps they'd prefer to direct their money towards subsidising
equipment for satellite subscribers rather than also risking money by
betting too much money on this new Sky DTT venture.

I can't help but think the real motivation behind this proposal was
the competition posed by Sentanta's future coverage of some
Premiership matches which will be available on DTT with a suitable
subscription. Sky retains the rights to most live coverage and I think
Sky DTT would be an attractive option to those who want access to some
Sky Sports coverage.