Sky planning to launch ‘pull VOD’ service

Sky has revealed plans to launch a ‘pull VOD’ service in about a year’s time, putting it head-to-head with Virgin Media.

Sky chief executive Jeremy Darroch, speaking at yesterday’s Merrill Lynch TMT Conference in London, said the company intends to use the technological capabilities of the improved Sky+ boxes to launch the service, reports Broadcast.

Although Sky already has a ‘push VOD’ service pushing content onto Sky+ boxes, Virgin Media’s TV Choice service has a far larger catalogue of on-demand content.

Daroch said: “We’re able to innovate of this product. In the past, when we’ve innovated we’ve had to swap the box out.

“We’re already working on services like pull VoD, which did great in the lab and which we expect to bring to market in about a year’s time, and targeted advertising, which we’ve got running at Osterley and will roll out over time.”