[Satellite News 04-16-09] Sky Television New Zealand is seeing strong demand for its recently launched high-definiton (HD) services that the uptake of the service has been the fastest in the company’s history, said John Fellet, Sky’s CEO.
    “Out of everything we have ever done, [pay per view], PVR (personal video recorder), etc., the greatest uptake we have ever seen has been with the HD PVR,” he told Satellite News. “We just can’t get the boxes installed fast enough here. As soon as we get them in, they are gone. We had planned to launch on July 1, which is the start of our fiscal year, but we only launched the service in mid-August 2008. We targeted 80,000 HD subscribers by the end of July this year. In January, we already had close to 60,000 HD subscribers.”
    While early signs are good, Sky still has work to do to persuade content providers to put HD on the platform, particularly as Sky would like to simulcast the channels, Fellet said. “There are issues with content suppliers. Someone like Discovery, who we have a good relationship with, they have an HD channel but they don’t want to simulcast it. We find one of the reasons for the high-take-up of movies and sports is that we simulcast,” he said.
    Currency issues also could impact the operator though. “For us, the main issue is the New Zealand dollar, which buys 20 percent less content than it did a year ago. That is always an issue,” he said.
   
Next Steps
Like a number of DTH operators, Sky’s multi-platform strategy is in full swing. At the end of 2009, the company announced a deal to launch services to Vodafone customers. The agreement will allow Vodafone to bundle Sky content, mobile and fixe- line voice and Internet services as part of a quadruple-play service. “This is another excellent example of how our two brands are able to work together to provide consumers with the full ambit of communications and entertainment options – either at home, or on the move,” said Vodafone CEO Russell Stanners.
    For Sky, the deal is in line with its strategy to get more of its content on different platforms without owning those other platforms. “We have taken a little bit of a different tack from BSkyB. They are a full telephony company now. We are being a content provider,” said Fellet. “… We don’t offer things like telephony and Internet ourselves. The trouble is then I start to look more like a competitor than a partner with some of these people.”
    The next stage for Sky will be offering content via IP using its existing set-top box. “We view IPTV much more an opportunity than we do a threat. We think for the foreseeable future, the Sky platform is the best way to reach content,” Fellet said. “However, if you want certain archived content, it will be difficult to do it with via satellite. They will want to access content via the Internet. We want to offer these other services that we think customers want.”
    Sky hopes its efforts will lead to relatively strong subscriber growth in 2009, as the operator is targeting another 15,000 subscribers. “We are at 47 percent penetration. We think we can knock a point off that penetration every year,” Fellet said. “That has been the pace we have been on. In early years, we were growing faster. There are 1.5 million homes, so gaining another 1 percent is 15,000 subscribers. We don’t see anything to stop us getting the same pay-TV penetration that you see in the United States.”