Have Sky Finally Lost It, Big Time?
I confess I'm still trying to work out why on earth Sky are pulling three channels out of the Freeview offering, so it can attempt to flog a brand new set top box to people just so they can get four channels that if the viewers really wanted, they'd probably have already.
The competition aren't that impressed by the move. On the BBC News Editor's blog, BBC News 24 controller Kevin Bakehurst proclaimed "Sky's decision will be a bad thing for news audiences, particularly those who can't afford subscription services and choose Freeview for that reason."
More confused must be the Sky News staff, who, according to the Media Guardian, were told in an internal email by Sky News boss, John Ryley
"In simple terms, we are going to stop giving away one of Sky's greatest assets [Sky News] for free, and we're going to start using it to help build our core business in the most effective way. This will further enhance the valued contribution that Sky News makes to the business."
Which is one hell of a statement given that Sky News is free to air from any satellite dish, and looks likely to remain so, and that, realistically, a 24 hour news channel is extremely unlikely to get those new set top boxes flying off the shelves. Indeed, according to BBC News, Sky are about to throw away a whopping 845,000 Freeview viewers (out of their weekly total of 4 million), and for what? A pay-TV service the majority aren't going to want?
After all, it's not called "Freeview" for nothing.
