BSkyB has revealed a little more about the on-demand TV service it’s going to start offering U.K. residents from this summer. It’s called Now TV and the company thinks it “marks he next chapter in our story.”
BSkyB
BSkyB is a satellite broadcaster 39.1 percent owned by Rupert Murdoch‘s News Corporation. It has been offering premium subscription services to British households for over 20 years, and millions of homes have the necessary dishes attached to an outside wall.
Sky and Virgin Media (the cable TV equivalent) have between them a large percentage of the British population signed up to premium monthly subscription plans that enable them to receive channels that aren’t free-to-air. But there are millions who haven’t signed, and likely never will sign, up.
Now TV
is BSkyB’s solution to that problem, and one which helps to secure its future at the same time. First teased in January, further details of Now TV emerged during the recent Guardian Changing Media Summit.
CEO of BSkyB Jeremy Darroch stated:
“We can reach out to them (non-subscribers) and offer more ways to offer them content. Later this year, we’re launching an over-the-top TV service. Starting with movies, it will expand to sport and then to entertainment. It will be on a pay-as-you go basis, no installation.”
“Having two brands will allow us to meet the needs of two distinct market segments. It will be a flexible, more spontaneous offering. It will be powered by Sky, offering the best, exclusive content all from a provider they can trust. Any notion that Sky is just a satellite broadcaster should be out the window now.”
This is BSkyB admitting that the future of content delivery may not be via satellite to a television set after all. The Internet has changed everything, and it either embraces the change or eventually dies as a result of the inevitable change in viewing habits currently taking shape.
Conclusions
This is a good move on BSkyB’s part. It’s an essential one for a company facing an uncertain future in a world becoming dominated by choice powered by the Web.
Cord cutters or those who never plugged it in in the first place will soon have a way of gaining access to Sky programming without signing their life away. And even I could be interested, if the price is right.
[Via The Next Web]
