Sky Digital (UK)
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| Type | Pay TV, broadband, phone and mobile phone |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Availability | Satellite |
| Founded | 2 November 1990 |
| Slogan | Believe in Better |
| Headquarters | Isleworth |
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Broadcast area
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United Kingdom |
| Parent | Sky plc |
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Key people
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Stephen van Rooyen (CEO) |
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Former names
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British Sky Broadcasting Limited |
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Official website
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www |
Sky UK Limited (formerly British Sky Broadcasting and BSkyB) is a telecommunications company which serves the United Kingdom. Sky provides television and broadband internet services, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers and businesses in the United Kingdom. It is the UK's largest pay-TV broadcaster with 11 million customers as of 2015. It was the UK's most popular digital TV service until it was overtaken by Freeview in April 2007. Its corporate headquarters are based in Isleworth.
Formed in November 1990 by the equal merger of Sky Television and British Satellite Broadcasting, BSkyB became the UK's largest digital subscription television company. Following BSkyB's 2014 acquisition of Sky Italia and a majority 90.04% interest in Sky Deutschland in November 2014, its holding company British Sky Broadcasting Group plc changed its name to Sky plc. The United Kingdom operations also changed the company name from British Sky Broadcasting Limited to Sky UK Limited, still trading as Sky.
Sky UK Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sky plc, with its current company directors being Andrew Griffith and Christopher Taylor. Griffith acts as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and the Managing Director for the commercial businesses division.
The present service can trace its heritage back to 1989, when BSkyB's predecessors Sky Television plc and British Satellite Broadcasting encrypted their respective film channels – Sky Movies and The Movie Channel which required viewers to get decoding equipment and a subscription to watch the channels. After the two companies merged, subscribers could get access to both channels, and later the sports channel Sky Sports also became encrypted.
In the autumn of 1991, talks were held for the broadcast rights for Premier League for a five-year period, from the 1992 season.ITV were the current rights holders, and fought hard to retain the new rights. ITV had increased its offer from £18m to £34m per year to keep control of the rights. BSkyB joined forces with the BBC to make a counter bid. The BBC was given the highlights of most of the matches, while BSkyB paying £304m for the Premier League rights, would give them a monopoly of all live matches, up to 60 per year from the 1992 season. Murdoch described sport as a "battering ram" for pay-television, providing a strong customer base. A few weeks after the deal, ITV went to the High Court to get an injunction as it believed their bid details had been leaked before the decision was taken. ITV also asked the Office of Fair Trading to investigate since it believed Rupert Murdoch's media empire via its newspapers had influenced the deal. A few days later neither action took effect, ITV believed BSkyB was telephoned and informed of its £262m bid, and Premier League advised BSkyB to increase its counter bid.
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Wikipedia