Sky+ DVR Surpasses 2 Million Deployments

--BSkyB Previews New Sky+ Features, Shares Sky+ Research

UK satellite TV provider, BSkyB, announced earlier this month that its Sky+ DVR has now surpassed the 2-million-deployment mark, following a 50% increase in deployments of the box in 2006. The company says that the achievement of this milestone (which it claims means that Sky+ is being used by almost 5 million viewers) puts it on track to pass its target of 25% Sky+ penetration well in advance of its original schedule of 2010. "Sky+ has changed the way millions of people watch TV," BSkyB CFO, Jeremy Darroch, said in a prepared statement. "In its own way, Sky+ has as dramatic an effect on the experience of TV as the iPod has with music. There's no going back once you've experienced the ability to take control over the TV schedules….Passing the milestone of 2 million Sky+ boxes keeps us on track to break through our target of 25% penetration well ahead of schedule. The rapid growth of Sky+ shows strong customer demand for additional services and gives us great confidence as our multi-product strategy moves forward this year."

Sky says that it is planning to make a number of enhancements to the Sky+ this year. One enhancement will allow customers to go to Sky's Web site to schedule recordings and program their box remotely over the Internet. Another enhancement will see the box being used as the basis of a push-VOD service which Sky says will give Sky+ customers "the chance to enjoy a selection of the week's best programs on-demand," and which will make use of reserved recording capacity on the hard drive of more recent models of the box. According to the company, the push-VOD service will initially be available to around a million Sky+ and Sky HD customers.

Sky has also just published some new research findings which it claims highlight how Sky+ is "changing the TV viewing habits of families around the country." The research is based on data garnered from the company's Sky View research panel (note: for more on the latter, see [itvt] Issue 6.87 Part 1). Among the research's findings:

• The genre of programming most frequently recorded by Sky+ customers is drama, which accounts for 39.3% of all time-shifted viewing. Other popular genres are documentaries (14.9%), entertainment (13%), and movies (9.5%).
• The genres of programming least frequently recorded by Sky+ customers are news and weather (0.6%) and current affairs (1.2%).
• Across all channels, time-shifting accounts for an average of 12.2% of total viewing through Sky+ boxes.
• The channels whose programming is most frequently time-shifted by Sky+ viewers are FX (33.1% of viewing is time-shifted), More (27.7%), Hallmark (24.8%), Living TV (23.3%), and ITV3 (23.1%).
• In Sky+ households, time-shifting accounts for 22% of all viewing of programs originally scheduled between 9:00PM and 10:00PM, and for 17% of all viewing of programs scheduled between 10:00PM and 11:00PM.

Originally Published: January 31, 2007 in [itvt] Issue 7.16 Part 1

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