Sky Ends Analogue

BSkyB is to terminate its analogue service from midnight tomorrow, completing the transition to a digital service ahead of the original deadline of 31 December 2002.

The broadcaster has been reducing the number of channels available through the analogue direct to home (DTH) service, despite some consumer concerns, (see More Channels Leave Sky Analogue) since the digital service launched in October 1998 (see Television’s Digital Future). Tomorrow night the last to leave will be Sky One, film channel Sky Premier and Sky Sports 2.

Part of the transition process has been to convert existing Sky analogue customers to the digital platform. By the end of June this year, only 145,000 subscribers remained with the analogue service, while those who had converted formed part of a total of 5.3 million digital subscribers.

Sky today confirmed that its free minidish and digibox offer, launched in May 1999 (see Digital TV War Intensifies ), will continue “for the forseeable future”. The company’s share price has risen during this week’s trading on the stock market, in spite of recent broker downgrades and the damage to market confidence caused by the World Trade Centre attacks (see Sharewatch). In contrast, Granada and Carlton’s continued investment in the re-branded digital TV service ITV Digital has been criticised this week by analysts at Zenith Media (see Zenith Slams ITV Digital).

BSkyB: 020 7705 3000 www.sky.com

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