Sky Restructuring its Sky Networked Media Division

--Will Refocus Sky Active as a Customer Communications Platform

UK satellite TV provider, BSkyB, says that it is making a number of changes to its Sky Networked Media division. (Note: the division, an expanded version of the division that was formerly known as Sky Interactive, was established earlier this year to bring together all Sky's new media content on set-top, Web and mobile platforms. It is part of a new Channels and Services group, headed up by Dawn Airey. Its managing director is James Baker, who was formerly MD of Sky Interactive. For more on the formation of Sky Networked Media, see [itvt] Issue 6.58 Part 1.). According to a Sky spokesperson, the division's restructuring "recognizes a need to integrate interactive and new media strategies into the core of Sky as a company."

Among other things, the restructuring will see all interactive advertising activities falling under the purview of Sky's advertising sales arm, Sky Media: the latter's deputy managing director, Paul Curtis, will now be in charge of Sky's interactive advertising efforts. In addition, it will see Sky's interactive TV portal, Sky Active, refocused as a customer communications platform: "It is proposed that the Sky Active portal will play an increasing role in support of Sky's core business," the Sky spokesperson wrote in an email to [itvt]. "In addition to working with third-party brands, Sky Active will become a key part of our customer communication plans through further development of My Sky [note: the latter is Sky's interactive customer service area], the HD interactive experience and new customer facing initiatives."

The decision to refocus Sky Active on customer communications comes less than two years after Sky redesigned it as an entertainment portal that would provide customers with what the company called a "more televisual" experience than it had previously offered. The redesign, which went live in November, 2004, and which was built almost entirely using Sky's own WTVML browser, made greater use of video and original editorial content than before, to create what the company termed a "magazine-style channel that offers on-demand entertainment and information as an alternative to conventional television." The transformation of Sky Active into an entertainment portal was led by the then-managing director of Sky Interactive, Ian Shepherd, who left Sky late last year to become director of commercial operations at telecommunications company, Vodafone. It is believed not to have resulted in the kind of increase in usage that had originally been anticipated.

Other elements of the restructuring of Sky Networked Media include the appointment of Griff Parry to head up Sky's broadband and mobile efforts, and the appointment of Will Harding to head up its efforts in the user-generated content space. (Note: for commentary on Sky's decision to refocus Sky Active as a customer communications portal, see Scott Gronmark's opinion piece, "Red-Button Interactivity: Waving or Drowning?" in [itvt] Issue 6.73.)

In other BSkyB news: a Sky spokesperson has confirmed to [itvt] that the company plans to add transactional functionality to its impulse- response interactive advertising application.

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