Sky Network Television: Платноe телевидение в Новой Зеландии

Pay television company in New Zealand

Sky Network Television Limited, more commonly known as Sky, is a New Zealand broadcasting company that provides pay television services via satellite, media streaming services, and broadband internet services. as of 2022, Sky had 1,023,378 residential television subscribers consisting of 517,003 satellite subscribers and 506,375 streaming subscribers. Additionally, Sky had 23,156 broadband customers. Sky used a portion of the freed up UHF and radio spectrum to launch its joint venture, Igloo, in December 2012. The remaining unused spectrum was relinquished back to the Government and will be recycled to support new broadcasting ventures.

In April 1997, Sky introduced a nationwide analogue direct broadcasting via satellite (DBS) service over the Optus B1 satellite. This allowed it to offer more channels and interactive options, as well as nationwide coverage. It upgraded it to a digital service in December 1998. While some channels on the UHF platform were shared with other channels, Sky Digital screened the same channels 24 hours a day. Orange (later known as Sky 1 and The Box) extended to screening 24 hours a day on Sky Digital but was only available to Sky UHF subscribers between 4 pm and 6 am. Discovery Channel was available to Sky Digital subscribers 24 hours a day but UHF subscribers could only receive the channel outside of Trackside's broadcast hours. Digital versions of free to air channels have always been available on Sky Digital meaning that some subscribers did not need to purchase any equipment to receive digital TV when New Zealand switched off its analogue service. While most free to air channels have been available on Sky Digital, TVNZ channels TVNZ 1 and TVNZ 2 did not become available until the end of 2001. A SkyMail email service was featured for a time, but was later pulled due to lack of interest (including the wireless keyboards they had produced for it). The unreliability of the ageing Optus B1 satellite was highlighted when the DBS service went offline just before 7 p. m. NZST (8 a. m. London, 3 a. m. New York) on 30 March 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 help desk, Sky posted update messages on their website advising customers that they were working with Optus to restore service by midnight. Sky credited customers with one day's subscription fees as compensation for the downtime at a cost to the company of NZ$1.5 million. Sky switched its DBS service to the Optus D1 satellite on 15 November 2006. It later expanded its transponder capacity on this satellite to allow for extra channels and HD broadcasts.

In December 2005, Sky released its own digital video recorder (DVR), which essentially was an upgraded set top box similar to Foxtel IQ in Australia or TiVo in the United States. Called My Sky, it offered 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 gave viewers access to a revamped Guide and the new Planner, used to plan and access recordings at the touch of a button. There was software in My Sky that after an hour of no signal from Sky then the decoder locks playback of pre recorded programmes. This was discovered on 30 March 2006, after the ageing Optus B1 satellite was out of alignment for a 13 hour period and therefore unable to broadcast Sky to over 600,000 subscribers. This generation of box was replaced by My Sky HDi when it launched on 1 July 2008. These boxes allow connection of up to four satellites which can work with its four TV tuner cards in any combination. The device has a 320GB HDD. The quality of My Sky HDi is 576i via component and 720/1080i via HDMI. A new feature was released exclusive to My Sky HDi on 6 July 2010 called Record Me. This feature allows subscribers to press the green button on programme advertisements to record that advertised programme. In May 2009, Sky introduced copy protection on My Sky and My Sky HDi decoders limiting the ability to copy material from My Sky/My Sky HDi to DVD/HDD recorders and to PCs. Sky Box Office channels, including adult channels are copy protected so DVD/HDD recorders and PCs will not record from these channels. Other channels are not copy protected. Copy protection technology is not built into other decoders. On 1 July 2011, a version of the same decoder with a 1TB hard drive was launched as My Sky+.

In November 2005, Sky announced it had purchased the free to air channel Prime TV for NZ$30 million. Sky uses Prime TV to promote its pay content and to show delayed sports coverage. New Zealand's Commerce Commission issued clearance for the purchase on 8 February 2006.

In February 2013, News Corp announced it would be selling the 44 percent stake in Sky TV that it acquired via a merger with Independent Newspapers Ltd in 2005.

From November 2015, Sky started replacing the legacy standard digital decoders and original 2005 My Sky decoders with a new digital decoder, manufactured by Kaon. The Kaon Sky box includes built in Wi Fi. A Sky Link adapter device can be ordered for free by customers, in order to use a Wi Fi connection on current My Sky boxes. The Kaon box has an ability to block recording features and storage capacity. The decoder upgrade allowed Sky to cease broadcasting scrambled channels using H.262 video compression in favor of H.264, which means Sky roughly doubled its capacity on satellite for additional channels and possibly Ultra H.265 HD broadcasts in the future. The upgrade of transponders to H.264 was completed in March 2019. Free to air channels such as Prime, Edge TV and Bravo Plus 1 remain in H.262 to be accessible to non Sky subscribers such as Freeview viewers. Additionally, the My Sky HDi and My Sky + decoder software was upgraded to use the same system software as the new Kaon boxes. The new Sky software had features such as internet capability, search functionality, favourite channels, and a series stack function. The software upgrade to My Sky boxes contained many bugs and caused thousands of customers to become disgruntled. The major issue was with the screen font which Sky later addressed in a future upgrade.

In June 2016, Sky TV and Vodafone New Zealand (now One NZ) agreed to merge, with Sky TV purchasing 100% of Vodafone NZ operations for a cash payment of $1.25 billion NZD and issuing new shares to the Vodafone Group. Vodafone UK will get 51% stake of the company. However, the proposed merger was rejected by the Commerce Commission which saw a plunge in Sky TV's shares. Sky continued to be a wholesale channel provider to Vodafone until 31 March 2023.

In late February 2018, Sky TV announced that it would be splitting its existing Sky Basic service into two new packages called Sky Starter and Sky Entertainment, giving new and existing customers the option of building bundles. The Sky Starter package would cost $24.91 monthly, replacing the earlier Sky Basic service which cost $49.91 monthly with extra charges for sports, movie, and other premier channels. The price reduction came in response to fierce competition from streaming services such as Netflix, Lightbox, and Amazon Prime Video, which had caused the loss of 38,000 satellite subscribers the previous year. Unlike its competitors, Sky TV was dependent on a linear broadcasting model and its exclusive rights to rugby union, rugby league, netball, and cricket content. While Sky had TV hoped that this change would attract new customers, the company's stock market shares dropped by 10% in response to investor concerns about future revenue, knocking NZ$100 million off its market value. In early March 2018, it was reported that Sky TV CEO John Fellet was pursuing talks with Netflix and Amazon Prime to share content and services. Fellet hoped to mimic the UK based television company Sky plc's success in negotiating a bundling package with Netflix. On 26 March 2018, John Fellet announced his intention to step down from his position, after being CEO for 17 years. Fellet had been with the company since 1991, first as chief operating officer before taking on the chief executive role in January 2001. On 21 February 2019, Martin Stewart replaced John Fellet as CEO. He had previously worked for BSkyB, The Football Association and OSN. On 1 December 2020, Stewart left the company to return home to Europe. Sophie Maloney was immediately appointed to the CEO position.

In February 2015, Sky launched its own subscription based video streaming service called Neon to allow New Zealanders to stream various HBO films and shows and to compete with US based streaming service Netflix, which launched in New Zealand in March 2015. Sky had initially planned to launch Neon in 2014 but was delayed by systems bugs. On 16 August 2019, Sky announced it had purchased Coliseum Sports Media's global rugby streaming service RugbyPass for approximately US$40 million. On 14 June 2020, Sky confirmed that Lightbox would be merged into the Neon app on 7 July 2020. The merged service retains the Neon brand but uses Lightbox's interface and includes content drawn from both Neon and the old Lightbox.

On 21 May 2020, Sky announced its plans to launch fibre broadband internet plans in 2021. Sky raised $157 million from investors with a discounted share issue to cover the cost of entering the broadband market. On 10 September 2020, Sky announced that a number of its staff members including Sky's then CEO, Martin Stewart, were trialing the broadband service in their homes. This testing was later expanded to a small group of customers in December 2020. On 24 March 2021, Sky launched the broadband service initially for existing satellite customers only. Sky later expanded the offering to new customers on 17 May 2021.

On 22 August 2019, it was announced that Sky had signed a six year agreement to take over from Westpac as the naming sponsor of Wellington Regional Stadium, effective 1 January 2020. On 28 November 2019, Sky announced that TVNZ would be its free to air broadcast partner for the 2020 Summer Olympics, instead of its own free to air channel Prime. On 27 October 2020, Sky announced a partnership with Spark, where the Sky Sport Now streaming service would be bundled with Spark Sport for a NZ$49.99 monthly subscription. On 9 June 2021, Sky announced an exclusive partnership with Disney to provide Sky Broadband customers with a 12 month subscription to the Disney+ streaming service. On 24 June 2021, Sky announced a partnership with Discovery New Zealand to provide coverage of The Championships, Wimbledon for free to air channel Three. In response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Sky removed Russian state TV channel RT from its programming. Sky spokesperson Chris Major stated that their decision to remove RT came following complaints from customers and consultation with the Broadcasting Standards Authority.

All Sky customers have the option to subscribe to the MySky service, per each Sky box in order to activate PVR features on that box. This allows the customer to pause and rewind live television, as well as record three channels while watching a fourth live, on their Sky box. The current Kaon Sky boxes have 500GB and 1TB of storage space. Another one of the advertised features of MySky is the ability to record series of programs using the "Series Link" feature. An older Pace MySky box is also still in circulation with 320GB storage and a "+" version of this box with a 1TB hard drive.

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 My Sky customers. This service commenced in 2007 offering 12−15 movies at any one time. New titles were downloaded automatically from the Optus D1 satellite to the PVR and listed only when they are available for purchase and instant playback. In November 2015, the Sky On Demand offering was extended to allow all Sky customers to watch subscribed content at a time that suits them, rather than according to the linear schedule. This removes the need to pre record certain TV shows or films, because viewers can connect the updated decoder to their home broadband and choose stream content from the catalogue of options depending on which channels they subscribe to. This is more akin to on demand services offered by TVNZ and Netflix, and is designed to give viewers more freedom.

Sky Go is Sky's video on demand and live streaming service, which was launched in 2011 as iSky. It can be accessed via the Sky Go website on PC or via a device via the Sky Go app.

In August 2009 an online service was launched where customers can log on and set their My Sky boxes to record programmes. The instruction to record a programme is sent to the set top boxes via satellite.

Sky has released a mobile app which works on iOS devices such as iPhone, iPad and iPod Touches, Android devices & Windows 8. The app contains an electronic programme guide, remote record capabilities (for My Sky boxes), Facebook & Twitter social functions and automatic programme reminders. The app had over 50,000 downloads from the iTunes App Store in four weeks.

In 2015, Sky launched an online streaming service called Fan Pass (branded as FAN PASS), which provided access to Sky Sport channels 1–4, including highlights on demand. Pay Per View events could be purchased separately when available. This service was offered at a discount to Spark customers with unlimited broadband. On 14 August 2019, Sky re branded Fan Pass as Sky Sport Now, featuring live streams for all 10 Sky Sport channels, highlights, on demand, match statistics and points tables. Three passes are available for purchase: a week pass, a month pass and a 12 month Pass. Pay Per View events can be purchased separately when they become available. On 27 October 2020, Sky announced that it would be bundling its Sky Sport Now streaming service with Spark Sport for a NZ$49.99 monthly subscription from 16 November 2020 onwards.

In February 2015, Sky launched Neon (branded as NEON), a subscription video on demand service. Prior to September 2019, Neon offered two packages: the TV package, which came with a free 14 day trial, or the TV & Movies package. In September 2019, Neon shifted to a single TV & Movies package worth $13.95 in order to compete with Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Spark New Zealand's Lightbox. In mid December 2019, it was announced that Sky would be purchasing rival streaming service Lightbox. For that period, Spark will continue to provide services to Lightbox customers while Sky will be footing the operational costs. The Igloo service was provided through DVB T and was available in areas of New Zealand where Freeview's terrestrial service is available. Customers required an Igloo set top box and UHF aerial to use the Igloo service. Unlike Sky Digital and Sky 's former UHF service customers purchased their decoder from a retailer and the customer owned the equipment, the customer was also responsible for the installation of the equipment including the UHF aerial. Sky subscribers do not own their Sky decoders and are required to return the decoder on cancellation of their service, Sky will also arrange for a technician to install any equipment in the customers home including the satellite dish. Igloo worked on a prepay system where the customer purchased basic channels for 30 days, the customer was able to discontinue their service at any time and could continue to be able to access free to air channels. Customers could also purchase one off shows such as movies or sport events. The Igloo service was closed on 1 March 2017, and Igloo boxes can still be used to access free to air channels by updating the system software of the box.

Sky also owned an Online DVD and video game rental service called Fatso. It discontinued business in December 2017.

Sky provided a Skywatch monthly magazine to all its customers, published by Stuff and printed by Ovato. Skywatch once had a readership of 965,000 which made it the largest magazine read in New Zealand, and the largest monthly magazine. The magazine provided monthly listings for Sky channels, as well as highlights and features. The publication moved to digital only in April 2020 and was discontinued in August 2020. In January 2007, Sky launched Sky Sport: The Magazine, as the published extension of the Sky Sport television package. The magazine featured articles by local and international sports writers, as well as sports photography. Sky TV Rugby commentator Scotty Stevenson was the editor. Publication ceased in June 2015.

Sky satellite subscribers receive a standard 60 centimetre satellite dish installed on their home along with set top boxes as part of the installation. Sky switched from the ageing 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. Sky have also purchased some of the capacity of Optus D3, which was launched mid August 2009, this gives Sky the ability to add more channels and upgrade existing channels to HD in the future. However, due to the LNB switching that would be required the single D3 transponder lease was later dropped in 2011. A set top box (STB) is used to decrypt the satellite signals. Digital broadcasts are in DVB compliant MPEG 4 AVC. Interactive services and the EPG use the proprietary OpenTV system.

When a customer subscribes to Sky they will have a decoder professionally installed and a satellite dish installed if one isn't already available. Sky maintains ownership of the equipment and part of the customers monthly subscription cost includes the rental of the decoder. Customers who have My Sky pay an additional cost per month. If a customer wants to discontinue their Sky service on a temporary basis the customer can switch to a decoder rental option which allows the customer to receive free to air channels only. When the customer cancels a Sky subscription the customer is required to return the equipment but not the satellite dish. If the customer moves to another address the customer is required to leave the satellite dish behind and arrange for a new satellite dish to be installed at the new address, at the customers expense, if a satellite dish has not already been installed at the new address. The satellite dish can be used to receive the Freeview satellite service using a Freeview set top box.

The 2016 NZ Corporate Reputation Index placed Sky in last place. The Corporate Reputation Index lists the top 25 companies in New Zealand based on revenue sourced from the 2015 Deloitte Top 200 list, and is judged by consumers with no company input. In the 2016 list Sky had dropped two places to number 25 from 2015. In the 2020 Brand Reputation Index, Sky came in at Number 9 in the Top 10 Brands Delivering Brand Purpose.