Sky sells its investments to the ISBA Conference

Mike Darcey, chief operating officer at BSkyB, took the opportunity of a speaking slot at the ISBA 2011 annual conference today to promote Sky’s content investment and innovation record, and get in a dig or two at the competition.

Opening on content, he said: “Our £2 billion investment in content is good for viewers and good for advertisers too.”

But Darcey focused most on investment in innovation, starting with a dig at an un-named broadcaster, who “tried to apply the handbrake to innovation and asked Sky to disable the fast forward button for their channels”.

His focus was mostly around AdSmart – advertisements housed on the hard drive and inserted into ad breaks, based on targeting data that Sky collect, and “made possible through the pioneering role of Sky+”.

The service is not yet rolled out – it was previewed at the ISBA conference last year – but Darcey described it as bringing intelligence and segmentation to TV advertising, which remains “more shotgun than rifle”.