Sky Drops Analogue Channels To Drive Digital

BSkyB has announced plans to discontinue the broadcasts of two services on its analogue satellite platform, in an attempt to drive uptake to its Sky Digital service. From April, pay-per-view film service Sky Box Office and subscription film channel FilmFour will both become digital-only on Sky’s service.

Sky yesterday announced that it has sold 2.6 million of the set-top boxes required to receive its digital services (see SkyDigital Subscribers Up To 2.6 Million); of these more than 2.3 million have activated their subscriptions. The company still has over six million analogue customers and will be keen to convert to digital to speed up the transition. Sky is hoping to have converted all its customers from analogue to digital by the end of 2002.

The company says that the analogue version of Sky Box Office was intended mainly as a taster for the complete digital offering. On Sky Digital the service operates as near-video-on-demand, which means that viewers can choose from 20 films each night, broadcasting at staggered starting times across 60 screens. Special events, such as sports and music, will continue to be available as pay-per-view to analogue customers.

General manager of movies and pay-per-view, Paul Taylor, says: “We’re announcing the move now in order to give the remaining analogue subscribers to these services plenty of notice so they can move to digital.”

The cost of setting up and promoting Sky Digital have been high for BSkyB. In its interim results yesterday, the company posted pre-tax losses of £61.5 million.

BSkyB: 020 7705 3000