ITV is refusing pay Sky the third party carriage fee it demands to broadcast the Network’s channels. Furthermore, given that much of Sky’s programming strength is built around sport, it is unlikely to want a rival group’s offerings to be placed side by side with its own.
From ITV’s point of view, access to the Sky subscriber base – which is considerably larger than ITV Digital’s – is naturally attractive. The third party access fee would cost ITV around £3 per month.
Sky also confirmed a target to retain its current 55% share of the pay-TV market. This would imply subscriber growth beyond the 7 million target in 2003, say ABN Amro analysts, but BSkyB stopped short of issuing any new subscriber targets.
Losses continue at Sky’s KirchPayTV joint venture in Germany and the company said it may pull out of the business. ABN believes that this is likely; AFX news reports Sky’s chief finance officer, Martin Stewart, as saying that KirchPayTV has until next year to improve its performance before BSkyB withdraws its interest.
