Tag: Sky
Sky launching 'green button' on-demand ads
In an attempt to charge their advertisers more for their content without pissing off viewers too much, Sky is launching a ‘green button’ service for advertising. Much like the red button service that lets people find out more information about a program, the green button will enable ‘extended advertising content’.
Advertisers will be able to encourage users to press the green button during a trail, and it’ll take them to a location where they’ll be able to find out more, or watch an extended version of the advert. It could even feature entirely new footage.
Warner Brothers will be trialling the new technology for the upcoming release of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, and a campaign for T-Mobile will also be live from launch.
But why would anyone ever use it? Except in a few cases, like the Superbowl, most people regard adverts as a necessary evil to get the content they want. Unless companies used this service very imaginatively, then I can’t see viewers really getting too excited about this one.
(via Brandrepublic)
Sky HD boxes self-destructing, getting replaced
Sky HD customer? Have you heard from your provider lately? The company is allegedly recalling thousands of digiboxes due to a design fault that will gradually corrupt hard drives, ultimately causing disk failure.
The problem affects Pace-made units (Thomson, Samsung and Amstrad models are fine) and subscribers are getting three months of free HD subscription to compensate them for any data stored on their boxes.
Have you had your box replaced? Get in touch in the comments below and let us know what happened.
(via TrustedReviews)
Sky offers Sky+HD box for under fifty quid as satellite giant pushes high definition
Sky has decided that it’s time to get really aggressive when it comes to high definition in the UK, and to that end has slashed the price of its Sky+HD box to just £49. That’s a third of the price it was early last year (£150) and is the satellite broadcaster’s hope of getting many more subscribers hooked on pay-for-HD.
In fact, thanks to a lot of enticing marketing and the lure of a variety of sports, films and other content in high definition, Sky has just had its best quarter — in the three months to the end of December, 188,000 people signed up for high-def services, taking the total number of subscribers to nearly 800,000…
RUMOUR: Sky launching its music subscription service in April
Many have tried to make the all-you-can-eat subscription model work for music, but it’s never taken off due to incompatibilities between different portable music players and the lack of any big companies really getting behind it. Well, we’re hearing a rumour that Sky will finally launch its previously-announced subscription service in April.
Last we heard, we were promised a mix of both streaming and downloadable tracks. Over Christmas, pricing was allegedly leaked – unlimited free streams, plus a set number of MP3 downloads each month. £5.99 for 5 downloads, £7.99 for 10 and £9.99 for 15.
I’ve asked Sky for more details, and I’m waiting to hear back. I, for one, am convinced that it’s not only possible for a subscription service to work, but it’s actually the future of mass-market music consumption. There’s too many people who don’t care about anything beyond the top 40 for that not to be the case.
Related posts: NOISE GATE: Why music subscription services will eventually work | Sky and Universal Music partner to launch subscription music streaming and download service
Sky develops 3D HDTV service for the masses
Sky has tried, tested and succeeded in developing a 3D HDTV system for the consumer home. They’re able to use the existing service infrastructure but unlike the Philip’s concept 3D screen, it does require viewers to use polarized glasses.
The satellite broadcasters used the system on episodes of Gladiators…
Sky launches mobile TV service for 3 customers
If you’re dead keen on squinting at a tiny phone screen to see watch TV, and a 3 subscriber, then you’ll be excited by the announcement this morning that Sky’s Mobile TV service will be coming to a handset near you in the near future. You’ll get Sky Sports channels, Sky News, At The Races and CNN, for a monthly fee of £5, or a daily fee of £1.
It seems that you’ll need a data package to receive the content, too, which will set you back £2.50 a month for 10MB. I suspect, however, that you’ll need substantially more than 10MB if you’re going to watch the service for more than a few minutes.
New Sky Player subscription service for non-Sky customers
Sky is looking to wires under the ground to provide TV programmes to customers – it is planning a new internet based subscription service for Sky Player, the iPlayer-esque clunky, bloated piece of crap you installed once and gave upon before successfully downloading any programmes to watch.
Sky and Virgin Media bury the hatchet, offer each other's basic channels
The long-running dispute between Sky and Virgin Media over carriage charges, and the dropping of channels from each other’s platform, may have finally come to an end as the two companies agree new channel carriage agreements…
Sky looking to take over Tiscali broadband
Not only is Sky spending heavily on advertising at present, hoping to improve upon its recent increase in subscribers, but it could be about to bid a cool £450m for the broadband provider Tiscali.
If Sky’s take-over of Tiscali, with around 1.2m broadband subscribers, is successful it would put its broadband business into third place, behind BT and Virgin Media…
Sky adds iPlayer listings to Sky Player, but Discovery doesn't want anything to do with the Internet
Sky has just added listings from rival BBC’s iPlayer to its own content-catchup service, Sky Player. The new sections carry BBC branding, but just consist of links to play the content in BBC’s own iPlayer environment…
