Sky (New Zealand)

Sky Network Television Limited

File:Sky Network Television NZ.gif
Company type	Public - NZX Code: SKT
Industry	Subscription Television DVD Rental
Founded	1987
Headquarters	Auckland, New Zealand
Key people	John Fellet, CEO Peter Macourt, Chairman
Products	Sky Television DVD Unlimited
Website	www.sky.co.nz

SKY Network Television Limited (ASX: SKT; NZX: SKT), often trading as SKY, is New Zealand's first pay television service and is at present, 2007, New Zealand's largest pay television operator. As of August 17 2007, SKY had 714,664 subscribers and was in 44.5% of New Zealand homes.

Services

Sky Televisiona set-top box (STB) used to decrypt the satellite signals. Digital broadcasts are in DVB-compliant MPEG-2. Interactive services and the EPG use the proprietary OpenTV system, with 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 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 and the digitization of its studios in Auckland.

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

Sky also provides a monthly magezine to all its costomers. called Sky Watch and is the number 1 monthly magezine in the country by circulation

Sky also owns part of an Online DVD rental service - DVD Unlimited in partnership with New Zealand's largest Internet Service Provider Xtra.

My Sky

In December 2005, Sky TV released its own Personal Video Recorder (PVR), 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. However the PVR box remains the property of Sky Television

Sky announced late 2006 that it will be using the 30% reserved disk space in the PVR to offer a video on demand service to its MySky customers. This service, commencing May 2007, will offer 12 - 15 titles at any one time. New titles will be downloaded automatically from the Optus D1 satellite to the PVR and listed only when they are available for purchase and instant playback. At the same time Sky will add a remote programming feature to MySky allowing customers to program their PVR's using the Internet or mobile phones.

Technical

SKY Digital subscribers get a standard 60-centimetre satellite dish installed on their home along with set-top boxes including modems for a return path.

Sky switched from the elderly Optus B1 to the Optus D1 satellite for its DBS service on 15 November 2006. Initially, Sky used vertically-polarised transponders on Optus D1 (as it had on Optus B1). However, on 31 July 2007 it moved its programming to horizontally-polarised transponders with New Zealand-specific beams to be consistent with Freeview and to gain access to more transmission capacity.

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 four groups of UHF frequencies in the Auckland, Hamilton and Tauranga regions.

The first Sky subscriber was Jonathan Hunt, according to Helen Clark, Prime Minister of New Zealand.

Sky rapidly won long term rights from US sports network ESPN (which become a 1% shareholder) as well as CNN and HBO providing it with a supply of sports, news and movies for three channels: SKY Sport, SKY News (a mix of CNN International and BBC bulletins) and SKY Movies (later renamed HBO, before reverting back 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 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. It faced difficulty in educating retailers and customers on the use of the original decoders. However, this problem was eased with the introduction of easier-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).

2006 SKY Digital outage

The direct broadcasting satellite (DBS) service went offline just before 7 p.m. NZST (8 a.m. London, 3 a.m. New York) 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 gave the cause as a problem during a routine manoeuvre of the B1 satellite. Sky also blamed the total solar eclipse that occurred the same day, with the solar panels being in shadow and unable to recharge themselves. Astronomers said that it was extremely unlikely there was any connection, as the satellite would only have been in shadow for a few more minutes than usual, if even in the shadow of the Moon at all during the eclipse. Service was resumed at 8 a.m. (9 p.m. London, 4 p.m. New York) on March 31 2006. SKY credited customers with one days' subscription fees as compensation for the downtime, at a cost to the company of NZ$ 1.5 million.

This outage prompted a New Zealander by the name of "Ben" to jokingly list the satellite as an item for sale on New Zealand's online-auction website TradeMe, eventually clocking up over 231000 page views and receiving much feedback and even mention in local media. It was listed with the description "One slightly used digital TV broadcast satellite. Seems to be misbehaving at the moment, unsure what the problem is, so bid at your own risk."

Prime Television

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. New Zealand's Commerce Commission issued clearance for the purchase on February 8, 2006.

Ownership

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.. More than 40% of the equity is owned by News Corporation, an American company chaired by Rupert Murdoch.

Channels

This lists all current digital channels, including those available in UHF and Free To Air (FTA). Channel numbers for the digital service changed March 1, 2007.

Television Channels

SKY Digital	UHF	Channel Name	Notes
0		Preview
1	1	TV One	Free-to-air.
2	2	TV2	Free-to-air.
3	3	TV3	Free-to-air. Broadcast in widescreen 16x9.
4	9	Prime	Free-to-air.
5	7	SKY 1
6		UK.TV	Broadcast in widescreen 16x9.
7		VIBE	Launches October 1, 2007.
8		The Living Channel
9		Food Television
11		E!
19	6	Māori Television	Free-to-air.
20	4	SKY Movies	Broadcast in widescreen 16x9.
21		SKY Movies 2	Broadcast in widescreen 16x9.
22		SKY Movies Greats	Broadcast in widescreen 16x9.
23		MGM HD	Broadcast in widescreen 16x9.
24		TCM
25		Rialto Channel	Broadcast in widescreen 16x9.
28		Preview
30	5	SKY Sport 1
31		SKY Sport 2
32		SKY Sport 3
33		SKY Sports Highlights
34		ESPN
35	8	TAB Trackside	Free-to-air
36		The Rugby Channel	Broadcast in widescreen 16x9.
40		Disney Channel
41	7	Nickelodeon
42		Cartoon Network
45		Playhouse Disney Channel
50		Playin'TV
51		MindGames
60		MTV New Zealand
62		Juice TV	Free-to-air. Available on UHF channel 57 in Auckland
63		J2
64	10	C4	Free-to-air. Broadcast in widescreen 16x9.
65		Alt TV	Free-to-air. Available on UHF channel 62 in Auckland
70	8	Discovery Channel
71		ci	Launches September 2, 2007. Broadcast in widescreen 16x9.
72		National Geographic Channel	Broadcast in widescreen 16x9.
73		The History Channel
74		Documentary Channel
75		Animal Planet
79		The Arts Channel
90		Sky News NZ
91		CNN
92		Fox News	Also aired overnight on Prime
93		BBC World	Also aired overnight on TV One
98		Weather Channel
110		Cue
111		Shine TV	Free-to-air. Available on UHF channel 56 in Christchurch.
200		SKY Box Office Events
201-216		SKY Box Office Movies
217		Playboy TV
218		Fresh
219		Spice Xcess
300-309		WTV
310		CCTV-9
315		STAR Plus Hindi

SKY Digital Music

• Channel 400 NZ Chart
• Channel 401 Pop
• Channel 402 Smooth
• Channel 403 Grooves
• Channel 404 Jazz
• Channel 405 House
• Channel 406 50s & 60s
• Channel 407 Party
• Channel 408 Rock
• Channel 409 Country
• Channel 410 Classical
• Channel 411 Kids
• Channel 412 Blues
• Channel 413 Theme

Radio Stations

• Channel 311 Real Good Life Chinese Radio
• Channel 312 New Supremo Chinese Radio
• Channel 500 KIWI
• Channel 501 Radio New Zealand National
• Channel 502 Radio New Zealand Concert
• Channel 503 Niu FM
• Channel 504 George FM
• Channel 505 Tahu FM
• Channel 506 Calvary Chapel Radio

Interactive Services

• SkyBet - interactive sports betting service.
• Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) - Television listing information.
• PlayinTV Games - video games.
• MindGames - challenging video games.
• Weather Channel - interactive weather maps and information.

See also

Optus Satellite Failures

External links

• Official site.
• New Zealand Stock Exchange Listing.