Jump to content

Sky Deutschland

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sky Deutschland GmbH
FormerlyPremiere AG (1991–2009)
Company typeSubsidiary
IndustryMass media
Founded28 February 1991;33 years ago(1991-02-28)
HeadquartersUnterföhring,Germany
Area served
Germany
Austria
Switzerland
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg(via cable subscription only)
Key people
Carsten Schmidt (CEO)
ServicesPay TV
Broadcasting
Television production
Mobile app[1]
Revenue€977.8 million (2010)[2]
€367.6 million (2010)[2]
€407.5 million (2010)[2]
Total assets€1.036 billion (2010)[2]
Total equity€333.8 million (2010)[2]
Number of employees
1,420 (FTE,2010)[2]
ParentSky Group
SubsidiariesSky Switzerland
Websitewww.sky.de

Sky Deutschland GmbH,branded asSky,is a German media company that operates adirect broadcast satellitePay TVplatform inGermany,AustriaandSwitzerland(throughSky Switzerland). It provides a collection of basic and premium digital subscription television channels of different categories via satellite andcable television.

It was launched in 1991 asPremiere.The channel originally started as a singleanaloguechannel on theAstra 1Asatellite, entirely without any commercials, showing filmsdubbedinto German, as well as in original audio, livefootballmatches from theGerman BundesligaandAustrian Bundesliga(and at one time theUEFA Cup), anddocumentaries,concerts andTV series.

After the coming of thedigital age,the service has since consisted of many channels with many new ones added over the years. On 4 July 2009, the service and its channels were rebranded as "Sky".[3][4]

Sky Deutschland is a wholly owned subsidiary ofComcast-ownedSky.[5][6]The programming service itself is provided by its subsidiary Sky Deutschland Fernsehen GmbH & Co. KG (formerly Premiere Fernsehen GmbH & Co. KG). It topped 3,000,000 subscribers by the end of 2011. As of Q2 2014, Sky Deutschland has more than 4 million subscribers.

History[edit]

The logo ofPremierein 2006
Typical illuminated Sky sign showing that a pub offers SKY TV

The German Sky has its origin in the analogue premium channelPremiere.It was owned byKirch Group,Bertelsmann,andCanal+,and started broadcasting in 1991, having an encryption method similar to that used by Canal+ in France, Spain and Poland and needing a similar decoder.

In 1996, Kirch Media launched a digital satellite platform called DF1, which offered several different channels, including premium movie and sports channels and basically, thematic channels.

Premiere started broadcasting three digital channels in 1997, one channel mirroring the analogue channel and two showing the same content at different times. In the following years Bertelsmann and Canal+ sold their ownership of Premiere to Kirch Group leaving it as the only owner of the service.

Premiere and DF1 merged to form Premiere World on 1 October 1999. Many of the channels offered on DF1 were carried over to Premiere World, others were rebranded or closed.

In 2002, the service became known as simply Premiere. Many of the channels were rebranded and the package structure was overhauled at the same time. At the same time, Kirch Group filed for bankruptcy, due to Pay TV services in Germany failing to gain much traction, and terrestrial television in Germany having already become very robust in a shorter period of time when compared with other European regions, leaving Premiere as a pretty notorious flop.

In 2003, investment groupPermirastepped in and took control of Premiere and managed to turn the service profitable in the following years. In 2005 it launched an initial public offering for €1.2 billion,.[7]

Exclusivity was for a long time a major selling point for Premiere, and most of its channels were only available through the Premiere platform. This changed in September 2007, when Premiere launched Premiere Star, a new satellite package made up of channels that were not exclusive to Premiere. The new package was called Sky Welt/Extra. The package includedTNT Serie,TNT Film, Sat.1 emotions, Kabel eins Classics,AXN,Kinowelt.TV, RTL Living,RTL Crime,FOX,Syfy Universal,Animax,Disney Junior,Disney XD,Boomerang,Cartoon Network,ESPN America,Eurosport HD,Eurosport 2,National Geographic Channel,Discovery Channel,MTV Germany,MTV Live HDandNicktoons.[8]

Since 2007 for a period of time they used to broadcastTNA wrestlingon their premiere sports channels. They broadcast episodes and live pay per views. At that time it was the only European cable television company to broadcast live TNA pay per views. It was also the only cable television company to broadcast both WWE and TNA entire programming in the same years,on the same channels.

In January 2008,News Corporationbought a 14.6% of Premiere.[9]News Corporation increased its shares of Premiere in the following months. On 4 July 2009, Premiere was rebranded, becoming Sky Deutschland.[4]In conjunction with the relaunch, many channels disappeared from the platform, switched packages or were renamed. Several new channels were also added. The rebrand marked the return of News Corporation's Sky brand to Germany since the encryption of the Sky Channel (nowSky One) in 1993, apart from the availability ofSky News.

Sky also sells it services to pubs, restaurants, hotels and other establishments. The services are marketed bySky Business.

Following News Corporation's split on 28 June 2013 to create two separate companies,21st Century Fox(the rebranded News Corporation), and the spin-off company NewNews Corp,the 54.5% stake held by News Corporation in Sky Deutschland was retained by the rebranded 21st Century Fox.

Following media speculation, on 12 May 2014 Sky Deutschland's sister company,BSkyB,confirmed that it was in talks with its largest shareholder, 21st Century Fox, about acquiring Fox's 57.4% stake in Sky Deutschland and its 100% stake inSky Italia.The enlarged company would be likely to be called "Sky Europe" and it will consolidate 21st Century Fox's European digital TV assets into one company.[10][11]The acquisition of the 57.4% stake was formally announced on 25 July 2014.[12][13]BSkyB also made a required takeover offer to Sky Deutschland's minority shareholders.[14]This resulted in BSkyB acquiring 89.71% of Sky Deutschland's share capital in total. The acquisitions were completed on 13 November.[12]British Sky Broadcasting Group plc changed its name toSky plcon 21 November 2014. On 27 November 2014 Sky plc increased its shareholding in Sky Deutschland to 90.04%, and by 2015 had bought out the remaining shareholders, de-listing the company from the Frankfurt stock exchange.[15]

On 17 November 2016, Sky Deutschland andWWEsigned a multiyear agreement to distribute WWE's premier pay-per-view events and broadcastRawandSmackDownlive on Sky Sports starting in April 2017.[16]

In May 2017, Sky Deutschland acquired Homedia, operator of the Swiss over-the-top streaming company Hollystar.[17]Sky subsequently launchedSky Sportas an OTT service in Switzerland, followed by an OTT entertainment service known as Sky Show in 2018.[18][19][20]Services in Switzerland are handled bySky Switzerland,a wholly owned subsidiary of Sky Deutschland.[21]

In September 2017, Sky Deutschland extended its multi-year satellite capacity deal with satellite operatorSESfor seven transponders at the19.2°E orbital position,confirming its long-term commitment to satellite delivery of services.[22]

In June 2022, Sky Ticket's name was changed to "WOW".[23]

Channels[edit]

FormerSky+logo

The channels that make up the Sky package broadcast from theAstra 19.2°Esatellite position, using theAstra 1H,Astra 1L,andAstra 1Msatellites. All channels are available in SD and separate HD channels.

Between 2004 and 2016, they were uplinked bySES Platform Services(laterMX1,now part ofSES Video); channels are now uplinked bySky Italia.[24]SES Video (formerly MX1) provide backup transmission services.[25][26]

Current[edit]

  • Sky One
  • Sky Replay
  • Sky Atlantic
  • Sky Cinema
    • Sky Cinema Premieren
    • Sky Cinema Premieren +24
    • Sky Cinema Hits
    • Sky Cinema Action
    • Sky Cinema Fun
    • Sky Cinema Family
    • Sky Cinema Best of
  • Sky Krimi
  • Sky News UK
  • Sky Sport1-14(1 UHD channel)
    • Sky Sport News HD
    • Sky Sport Austria
    • Sky Sport Bundesliga 1-9(1 UHD channel)
  • Sky Crime
  • Sky Documentaries
  • Sky Nature
  • Sky Showcase

Defunct[edit]

On 29 November 2018, 14 SD feeds were closed on Astra 19.2 satellite: Disney Junior, Beate-Uhse.TV, National Geographic, Discovery Channel, 13th Street, Fox, TNT Series, Syfy, NatGeo Wild, Spiegel Geschichte, Sky 1, TNT Film, Disney Cinemagic and Sky Atlantic.[29]The SD switch-off is part of a major transponder reorganisation by Sky Deutschland on 29 November on the Astra satellite.[citation needed]

Encryption[edit]

VideoGuardis used asconditional accesssystem.[30][31]

Bone conduction advertising abuse[edit]

In mid 2013, the company considered usingbone conductionvia train windows to broadcast ads to train riders.[32]

References[edit]

  1. ^"Wie du die Bundesliga 2018 in der Schweiz schauen kannst und wieviel es kostet"(in German). TV Pro Schweiz. 22 January 2018.Retrieved14 January2019.
  2. ^abcdef"Annual Report 2010"(PDF).Sky Deutschland. Archived fromthe original(PDF)on 19 July 2011.Retrieved13 March2011.
  3. ^"Premiere rebranded Sky".advanced-television.12 May 2009.Retrieved21 June2020.
  4. ^abRoxborough, Scott (8 May 2009)."Premiere to rebrand as Sky Deutschland".The Hollywood Reporter.Retrieved21 June2020.
  5. ^"Sky Deutschland AG - News".Archived fromthe originalon 24 July 2015.Retrieved19 June2014.
  6. ^Christoph Steitz and Harro Ten Wolde (14 January 2013)."News Corp to grab control of Sky Deutschland".Reuters.
  7. ^Premiere Shares Jump Nearly 14% In Trading Debut- David Roman and Jennifer Letki, The Wall Street Journal, 10 March 2005
  8. ^"Premiere Star announces full channel line-up".broadbandtvnews. 16 August 2007.
  9. ^News Corp buys stake in German pay-TV firm- Chris Tryhorn, The Guardian, 7 January 2008
  10. ^Statement on potential acquisition,BSkyB 12 May 2014Archived16 May 2014 at theWayback Machine.Retrieved: 19 June 2014.
  11. ^"'Sky Europe': what is behind BSkyB's effort to buy Murdoch's European pay-TV businesses?",The Daily Telegraph12 May 2014.Retrieved: 19 June 2014.
  12. ^ab"Sky creates Europe's leading entertainment company".Sky. 13 November 2014. Archived fromthe originalon 15 November 2014.Retrieved13 November2014.
  13. ^Garside, Juliette (25 July 2014)."BSkyB to buy Sky Italia and Sky Deutschland for £4.9bn cash".The Guardian.Retrieved21 June2020.
  14. ^"BSkyB to pay $9 billion to create Sky Europe".Reuters. 25 July 2014.Retrieved25 July2014.
  15. ^"Shareholding in Sky Deutschland AG".Sky. 28 November 2014. Archived fromthe originalon 21 March 2015.Retrieved15 December2014.
  16. ^Middleton, Marc (17 November 2016)."WWE Announces New International TV Deal".Wrestling Inc.Retrieved28 April2020.
  17. ^Signorelli, Max (18 May 2017)."Sky expands presence in Switzerland with acquisition of online-video service HollyStar".Omdia.Retrieved21 June2020.
  18. ^"Sky launches Netflix rival in Switzerland".Broadband TV News.2 March 2018.Retrieved19 December2018.
  19. ^"Sky acquires Swiss OTT TV provider Homedia".Digital TV Europe.4 May 2017.Retrieved19 December2018.
  20. ^"Sky Deutschland launches Sky Sport in Switzerland".IHS Technology.Retrieved19 December2018.
  21. ^"About Sky Switzerland".Sky Help-Center.Retrieved21 June2020.
  22. ^Sky Deutschland extends deal with SESDigital TV Europe 29 September 2017. Accessed 31 October 2017
  23. ^online, heise (7 June 2022)."Aus" Sky Ticket "wird" WOW "".c't Magazin(in German).Retrieved20 November2022.
  24. ^"Sky Deutschland moves Astra uplink to Sky Italia".Broadband TV News.7 November 2016.Retrieved21 June2020.
  25. ^"MX1 provides Sky Deutschland with full-scale backup".Broadband TV News.19 January 2017.Retrieved21 June2020.
  26. ^"MX1, Sky Deutschland extend service agreement".TVBEurope.18 June 2019.Retrieved21 June2020.
  27. ^ab"Sky Deutschland scraps Sky 3D and Sky HD Fan Zone".Broadband TV News.27 June 2017.Retrieved21 June2020.
  28. ^"Sky Arts to drop linear channel in Germany".Broadband TV News.15 March 2019.Retrieved21 June2020.
  29. ^"EXCLUSIVE: Sky D focuses on HD and removes SD channels".Broadband TV News.31 October 2018.Retrieved31 October2019.
  30. ^Forrester, Chris (18 August 2014)."Sky Deutschland to drop Nagravision".advanced-television.Retrieved21 June2020.
  31. ^"Sky agrees Cisco security deal".Broadcast.18 July 2017.Retrieved21 June2020.
  32. ^Andrew Trotman (3 July 2013)."Sky Deutschland to broadcast adverts directly into train passengers' heads".The Daily Telegraph.Retrieved29 December2017.

External links[edit]

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sky_Deutschland&oldid=1229755776"