Sky to launch 'freesat' in October

net1

BSkyB chief executive James Murdoch has revealed more of the satellite operator's strategic thinking on its proposed free satellite service, high definition television, and an upgrade to its Sky Plus personal video recorder.

In an interview, Murdoch - who this week unveiled Sky's latest quarterly results, which disappointed the markets - said Freeview, the free-to-view digital terrestrial television service in which it has a stake, was regarded as "a mechanism to accelerate a replacement cycle from analogue reception equipment to digital reception equipment".

It was no more a threat to Sky than free analogue television was 10 years ago, said Murdoch.

Sky will launch its free satellite service in October, though Murdoch said the launch would be "pretty modest".

"It shouldn't have a big impact on subscriptions," said Murdoch, who revealed the launch would start regionally, "targeting areas where there may be latent demand, where Freeview has not been available because of lack of signal coverage".

Murdoch said it was "a little early right now to put some big targets" against the free satellite proposition. "But the important thing about it is that you need to have a lot of digital satellite free customers in order to get to [analogue] switchover. We think we will get to switchover, and we think we're going to be a strong player in that free-to-air digital satellite space. Those customers who are taking that service from us; it's very, very easy for them to upgrade to Sky down the road."

Murdoch confirmed a 2006 launch for its high definition television service in the UK. The service will comprise a premium package of channels, include hi-def coverage of events, movies and "a lot of programming".

"We think it's an important driver for the future. If you look at, for example, plasma screen sales in the UK projections over the next five years, some of those projections are just staggering. We see that as really an indication that people are generating higher expectations for themselves, in terms of the quality of how they want to consume media in their home and they're making investments to do that.

"So, we think there's a big market for high definition. And we think there's clear demand for that sort of high, high quality, just tremendous product. High definition's going to be great; it's just going to blow people away"

Murdoch said a new Sky Plus box would launch later this year. Costing £399, it will be pitched as a premium product, offering more programme storage memory and two USB ports, allowing consumers to connect their Sky Plus boxes to other devices.

"It's a great piece of engineering that's really going to be the platform for future development of that product. It's got a lot more storage, which is important, which gives customers a lot more flexibility and, in the future, will give us more flexibility in terms of providing different kinds of services to those customers," said Murdoch.

garrick

Once people have $KY's Freesat then they will bully them to sign up to their premier channels.

GARRICK