Sky enters on-demand battle with Anytime TV

Gareth Jones, Marketing, Wednesday, 13 December 2006, 12:00am,

Sky is to counter the launch of BT Vision with its own video-on-demand service, which will allow viewers to download TV programmes, movies and sports highlights.

The satellite broadcaster is extending its Sky Anytime download service beyond the web and mobile phones to the 1.7m UK households with a Sky+ personal video recorder (PVR).

The offering will allow Sky+ subscribers to pay for the option of downloading exclusive Sky One, Sky Box Office, Sky Movies and Sky Sports content to their set-top box in a similar way to the service offered by Homechoice. It is understood that Sky will also use the service to showcase TV programmes before making them available to the rest of its 8.4m digital satellite viewers.

Sky is in talks with advertisers and agencies about commercial opportunities; there is potential to target consumers with personalised ads and branded video-on-demand channels.

The launch of Sky Anytime TV follows the debut of BT Vision, a broadband TV service. Channel 4 also recently launched 4oD, a web-based TV download service, and ITV is revamping its website to include video-on-demand functionality.

This article was first published on Marketing