(; ), 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
June 30 2005 , SKY had 619,168
Subscriber s.
Sky Television operates both a
UHF Terrestrial pay television service on five
Network s of frequencies covering around 83
Percent of the
Population and
Direct Broadcasting Satellite (DBS) service offering around 60 channels of
Programming . Sky TV plans to add many new channels to its lineup in the future and is currently one of the world's fastest growing and most successful pay TV operators per capita.
Sky TV's major focus is currently the implementation of an
OpenTV based
Interactive TV platform.
Sky provides a number of channels to
TelstraClear for their Cable Television offering.
Sky also owns part of an
Online DVD Rental service -
DVD Unlimited in partnership with New Zealand's biggest
Internet Service Provider Xtra .
In December
2005 , Sky TV released its own Personal Video Recorder, which essentially is an upgraded set top box similar to
Foxtel IQ in
Australia or
TiVo in the
U.S. . Called
My Sky , it offers viewers the ability to pause live television, rewind television, record up to two channels at once straight to the set top box and watch the start of a recorded programme while still recording the end. It also gives viewers access to a revamped Guide and the new Planner, used to plan and access recordings at the touch of a button.
It has recently been discovered that there is software in My Sky that after an hour of no signal from Sky then the decoder locks playback of pre-recorded programmes, this function is soon to be removed. This was discovered after the failure of the Optus B1 satellite.
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
Club s and
Pub s 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 four groups of UHF frequencies in the
Auckland ,
Hamilton and
Tauranga Region s.
Sky rapidly won long term rights from US sports network and
BBC bulletins) and SKY Movies (later renamed HBO, before reverting to its original name.)
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, in
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, in
1996 , was to
Taranaki ,
Whangarei and
Eastern Bay Of Plenty .
In April
1997 , SKY introduced a nationwide analogue
Direct Broadcasting Via Satellite (DBS) service, that, and would also give it the opportunity to offer its customers more channels and
Interactive options. It upgraded it to a digital service in December
1998 .
The concept of a pay television service was new to New Zealand and Sky had early problems. These included
Viewer acceptance of subscriber television and faced difficulty in educating
Retailer s and
Customer s on the use of the original
Decoder s a problem. The latter was partially fixed by the introduction of newer and more easy to use decoders that allowed greater viewer flexibility.
Channels that are no longer carried by Sky TV include:
CNBC ,
Granada UKTV ,
Hallmark Channel ,
TVSN and Property TV. A SkyMail
Email service was also featured for a time, but was later pulled without explanation (including the wireless keyboards they produced for it).
The
Direct Broadcasting Satellite (DBS) service went offline just before 7 p.m.
NZST on
March 30 ,
2006 . The interruption affected service to over 550,000 customers and caused many decoders to advise customers of "rain fade." Due to excessive volume of calls to the SKY toll-free helpdesk SKY posted update messages on their website advising customers that they were working with Optus to restore service by midnight.
SKY are giving the cause as a problem during a routine manouevre of the 1.5 million.
Following the total relaxation of foreign ownership limitations in April 1991.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 $25 million) that Sky reduced its prices extended coverage and introduced the new simpler decoders.
In 1988,
TVNZ still cash and asset rich looked to Sky to foster development of mutual interests and eventually took a 35% holding in the company. Hedged against
Competition TVNZ allowed Sky to
Advertise on its stations and allegedly benefit from their association with TVNZ in the market for overseas programming. Had it not been for later events the combination of the two companies may well have produced a New Zealand media giant.
Since then TVNZ Group sought to divest itself of non-core assets as it faced pressure to provide dividends to its owner the
New Zealand Government . The sale of its shareholding in Sky and an increasing focus on
Digital Terrestrial broadcast along with the involvement of new owners
Independent Newspapers Limited lead to rift between the two broadcasters which culminated in the decision by Sky to sell rebroadcast rights to its sports content to rival broadcaster
Canwest , operator of
TV3 and TV4.
In July
2005 , SKY Network Television Limited and Independent Newspapers Limited merged the two companies into a new company,
MergeCo ,which was renamed Sky Network Television Limited.Independent Newspapers now own 78% of SKY Network Television. The
Commonwealth Bank Of Australia are the only other shareholders who own more than 5% of the company.
Sky should not be confused with
BSkyB in the
UK , though one of
BSkyB's shareholders,
News Corporation , has a 44% shareholding in SKY Network Television, following the 2005 merger..
In November
2005 , Sky announced it had purchased the free-to-air channel
Prime Television for
NZ$ 30 million. Sky will use Prime to promote its pay content and to show delayed sports coverage. The New Zealand's Commerce Commission issued clearance for the purchase on
February 8 ,
2006 .
This lists all current digital channels, including those available in UHF and
Free To Air (
FTA ).
- Pay-Per-View channels.
- SkyBet - interactive sports betting serivce.
- Go Auto - classified auto advertising.
- Interactive Programme Guide - Television listing information.
- PlayinTV Games - video games.
- MindGames - challenging video games.
- Weather Channel - interactive weather maps and information.
