British Sky Broadcasting: Encyclopedia II - British Sky Broadcasting - History

British Sky Broadcasting - History

British Sky Broadcasting - Origins

By 1990 both Rupert Murdoch's Sky Television and the BSB alliance were beginning to struggle with the burden of massive losses. The collapse of BSB in November 1990 led to a merger, which was in effect a takeover by Sky - quality programming and superior technical quality had been no match for shrewd, aggressive marketing and pragmatic capital expenditure.

The new company was called British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) but marketed as Sky, Marco Polo House was sold, BSB's channels were largely scrapped in favour of Sky's and the Marco Polo satellites were run down and eventually sold in favour of the Astra system (Marcopolo I in December 1993 to NSAB of Sweden and Marcopolo II in July 1992 to Telenor of Norway. Both companies had already one HS376 in orbit at the time). The merger may have saved Sky financially; despite its popularity, Sky had very few major advertisers to begin with. Acquiring BSB's healthier advertising contracts and equipment apparently solved the company's problems.

British Sky Broadcasting - Football rights

BSkyB's purchase of broadcast rights for major sporting events, most importantly Premiership football, has been the bedrock of its success. The company paid over £300 million for the FA Premier League rights, beating the BBC and ITV, and has had a monopoly of live matches for over ten years. Murdoch has described sport as a "battering ram" for pay-television, providing a strong customer base. [1]

British Sky Broadcasting - Improving technology

The Astra satellite network began with the launch of Astra 1A in 1989. With the launch of more Astra satellites from 1991 onward BSkyB was able to begin expanding its services (the Astra satellites were all orbitally co-located so that they could be received using the same dish).

The launch of the first Astra 2 series satellite at a new orbital position, 28.2° east, in 1997 (followed by more Astra satellites as well as Eutelsat's Eurobird 1 at 28.5°E), enabled the company to launch a new all-digital service, Sky Digital, with the potential to carry hundreds of television and radio channels. The Astra 2 fleet at 28.2° east maintains a geostationary orbit 35,600km from earth and was built by Hughes (now Boeing Satellite Systems) and Astrium (now EADS Astrium).

Sky do not own any of the satellites it has used since withdrawing service from the Marcopolo craft; the Astra satellites are owned and operated by SES Astra and Eurobird 1 by Eutelsat. Sky has shared its orbital position with other pay-TV systems in the past.

British Sky Broadcasting - Terrestrial competition

BSkyB has faced competition from terrestrial such as the ONdigital digital terrestrial television service (later renamed ITV Digital). BSkyB defeated its rivals partly thanks to aggressive marketing and partly because of its rivals' numerous technical and administrative failures. One of these problems was that its method of encryption was easily breakable. However, Sky was more receptive to ITV Digital's FTA replacement, Freeview, in which it holds an equal stake with the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and National Grid Wireless. Three BSkyB channels are available on this platform: Sky News, Sky Three, and Sky Sports News. Sky Three used to be occupied by Sky Travel until it was replaced on October 31, 2005, allowing BSkyB to air it's exclusive licenced content with delays of between 12-18 months from their original air dates on Sky One.

In a response to the push towards Free to Air availability, BSkyB have marketed a free to view network (Freesat on Sky) to a limited extent.

British Sky Broadcasting - Timeline

• 1990 - November - British Sky Broadcasting formed by merger of Sky Television and British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB). Murdoch the majority shareholder through News International, BSB partners Pearson and Granada become minority shareholders through BSB Holdings Limited (BSBH).
• 1991 - Of BSB's five channels; Now news programmes merged with Sky News, Galaxy merged with Sky One, the Sports Channel and Movie Channel are maintained, Powerstation is withdrawn. Sky One, Sky News and Sky Movies maintained but Eurosport is withdrawn.
• 1992 - July - BSkyB sells the former BSB Marcopolo II satellite to Telenor
• 1992 - BSkyB signs exclusive live television rights deal with the FA Premier League
• 1992 - December 31 - BSkyB ceases transmissions to Marcopolo I satellite.
• 1993 - "Sky multichannel" packages launched.
• 1993 - December - BSkyB sells the former BSB Marcopolo I satellite to NSAB
• 1994 - 17% of BSkyB is floated on the London and New York stock exchanges
• 1994 - Five more channels launch, including Sky Sports 2.
• 1995 - Six more channels launched including History Channel and Disney Channel.
• 1996 - BSkyB signs an extension of its Premier League rights for £670 million
• 1998 - August 30 - First of a new generation of Astra satellites launched, paving way for digital satellite television. Sky Digital launches on October 1.
• 1999 - Vivendi SA becomes sole shareholder of BSBH, which held 11.8% of BSkyB at the time. It also acquired the shareholding of Pathé through merger, bringing its total shareholding to 22% (as of 2001). BSkyB Chairman Jerome Seydoux forced to resign due to sale of Pathe's interest — Murdoch takes Chairmanship to prevent Vivendi acquiring it (as it would be entitled to).
• 2001 - BSkyB signs 5 millionth subscriber. Analogue service discontinued.
• 2001 - December - Vivendi Universal sells part of its shareholding comprising 8% of the company, followed by the remaining 14% in May 2002.
• 2002 - BSkyB takes an equal share of Freeview, in partnership with the BBC and Crown Castle (now part of National Grid).
• 2003 - James Murdoch elected as CEO, replacing Tony Ball.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki