One of the things we offer all Sky customers is the chance to take advantage of the latest technology. First it was digital TV, then an integrated digital decoder and personal video recorder in the shape of Sky+, and now, high definition. But this isn't innovation for its own sake. It's first, last and always about our customers. It's about what new technology can do for them, and how we can use it to make Sky better, brighter, and even more enticing.
We invested time and money to make our services easier and safer to use. We've grouped channels into genre packages to make it simpler for people to decide what to buy, we've added new features, and we've upgraded the parental control systems that are so important to families. And we're working in partnership with other industry-leaders: Vodafone is helping to bring Sky mobile TV to the UK, while Intel worked with us on Sky by broadband. But this is just the start.
As technology gets more complex, our priorities remain simple: give our customers more choice about their entertainment, and more control about when, how and where they access it. And package it in a way that's easy to use and adapts to fit their lives.
Sky+ adds up
Almost one in five Sky customers takes Sky+, our state-of-the-art
technology that gives you the power to take control of when you
watch your favourite programmes. Sky+ means you can stop
fitting your life around TV, and start fitting TV around your life.
In the last year we've made improvements to the Sky+ service, expanding its features, increasing the storage capacity of our standard product, and making it even easier and more intuitive to use - after all, who has the time to struggle over instruction manuals? We have also added a remote record feature, so that you can programme your Sky+ box from your mobile phone. And soon you'll be able to do that on the web too - another Sky first.
High definition dawns
In May 2006 we launched Sky HD, the high definition television
service that offers the widest choice of HD channels in the UK.
It's hard to explain how much better HD is until you see it, but Sky
HD viewers are already enjoying everything from sport to movies
in vibrant colour and brilliant clarity.
The Barclays Premiership football season will be available in HD for the first time, as will the Coca Cola Football League, Guinness Premiership rugby, Ryder Cup golf and England's home internationals and domestic county cricket. We have two dedicated movie screens, as well as up to ten movies showing in HD on Sky Box Office HD every week, along with special HD programmes on Sky One HD, Artsworld HD, Discovery HD, and National Geographic HD. And Sky HD doesn't just offer superb picture and Dolby Digital 5.1 sound quality on many packages, but all the extra flexibility and convenience of Sky+ too.
Offering such a comprehensive HD service has been a huge technical challenge for us as a business, and has involved everyone from the transmission teams, to customer support, to marketing. We've also been working with Sony on co-marketing the huge advantages of HD, and there have been some great offers for people buying both a Sky HD box and Sony HD-Ready TV.
Everything we've seen suggests that there'll be huge demand for HD TV - once you've seen what HD can do, ordinary TV just isn't the same. As with digital, people are going to look for a supplier who can give them a reliable service that's easy to use and offers unbeatable choice. No-one can do that better than Sky.
Sky Broadband is here
In July 2006 we launched our very own broadband service -
Sky Broadband. On the back of Easynet's state-of-the-art network,
which covers 28% of UK households, customers have the chance
to enjoy the best of the web including super-fast surfing and
high-speed downloading of music, games, sports clips and
movies. As with everything we do, our first priority with
Sky Broadband was to create a product that's reliable, easy to
use, secure, and offers value for money. The basic service is a free
subscription to Sky TV customers, and there are also 'Mid' and
'Max' packages for people who want extra speed and usage.
All three come with an option of home installation, and a free
wireless router so that the benefits of broadband can be enjoyed
by the whole family, all over the house. And on top of that we're
also offering customers telephone calls on Sky Talk. This will
save people money on their phone bills with unlimited calls to
UK landlines, any time of day, for just £5 a month.
Sky Broadband opens up all the possibilities of the internet to Sky customers, but people with an existing broadband connection have been able to use it to access some of our premium content for some time. Sky by broadband already gives Sky World, Sky Sports Mix and Sky Movies Mix customers the extra freedom and convenience of accessing around 400 movies and over 1,000 different sports clips via their PC or laptop at no extra charge. So far over 250,000 customers have signed up to Sky by broadband and there have been over a million downloads, and we'll be adding entertainment programming from Sky One later in 2006.
Making Sky mobile
Sky by mobile offers customers Sky News, Sky Sports
and entertainment video clips and stories on their mobile
phone allowing them to stay in touch with live events even
when they're out of reach of the TV. Customers can also access
the Sky Guide - Sky's 7-day TV listing service.
We launched Sky Mobile TV in November 2005 in partnership with Vodafone. We offer over 20 different channels by 3G phone - some are live, like Sky News, Sky Sports News, and CNN, while others are mobile TV versions of favourite channels (like Sky One, MTV or Cartoon Network) that are designed to be watched in short bursts, maybe when you've only ten minutes to spare. Customers seem to love Sky Mobile TV: by the end of June there were over 100,000 new subscriptions to Sky Mobile TV. In 2006 a whole summer of live sport was available on Sky Mobile TV, including exclusive live coverage of the Football League Play-Offs and England's Test and One-Day internationals against Sri Lanka and Pakistan.