Sky to open up 2nd card slot

net1

Sky is activating the second card slot in its set-top boxes in 7.4m UK households. This will enable broadcasters, betting operators and retailers to launch their own loyalty card schemes via digital satellite TV.

The move is due to take place in January next year and SSSL, the Sky division responsible for operating the digital satellite platform, is this week notifying 27 broadcasters including the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five, whose businesses could be transformed by the development.

The second slot, additional to that taken up by the viewer's decryption card, has been a feature of Sky set-top boxes since the digital satellite platform was launched more than five years ago, but has lain dormant until now.

The decision to activate it paves the way for TV loyalty schemes which broadcasters could launch as a means of retaining audiences in an ever more fragmented multi-channel world.

The wealth of transactional services already available on sky digital, including betting channel William Hill TV and the QVC shopping channel, also stand to benefit from the new potential for establishing direct relationships with viewers.

However, this won't apply to those without the necessary interactive agreement in place with SSSL that enables them to offer red button services, such as Richard Desmond's recently launched Express Shopping Channel.

For Sky chief executive James Murdoch - who has set the satellite company the target of being in 10m households by 2010 - the move also opens up the possibility for Sky to launch its own smartcard loyalty scheme, or even branch out into the credit card business.

The addition of smartcard services to sky digital could prove a major boon over digital terrestrial rival Freeview, as well as persuading customers of Sky's free-to-air service to upgrade to subscription packages.

Although it won't be possible to insert standard credit cards into the second slot, third parties will be able to develop propositions that could include rewarding audiences for staying tuned or for viewing ads.

One business is already positioning itself for such an eventuality. MiCard.tv is a joint venture by iTV firm Mindhouse and Emergent Media Partnerships, which claims it has already secured interest from a number of broadcasters keen to roll out products.

Starfight

To complete Net1's post and to try and be more exhaustive...

There is another business which positionned itself of this eventuality. A small company called TV-Card launched a smart card based scheme for the second smart card readers of IRDs during the 2003 MILIA in Cannes. It seems that they already have a running solution that appears to be running on most of the existing middleware (Mediahighway, OpenTV and MHP).

They have displayed sampling applications using their solution which seem to be running quite smoothly, proof of a stabilized engine running above the decoder middleware.

See http://informitv.com/articles/2004/10/27/skysmartcard/ and www.tv-card.fr for additional infos.

Cheers,
Starfight.