euro news1112v3_news 10/12/2015 18:20 Page 1
ith CEO Jeremy
Darroch
describing it as
“the biggest reimagining of
Sky in its history”, the UK
pay-TV operator has
launched Sky Q, a family of
products which it says are
designed to reflect the way people
consume content nowadays. It also
confirmed that Sky Q would be UltraHD
ready in advance of the launch of what
Sky claimed would be the UK’s most
comprehensive such service later in
2016, offering customers a range of
sports, movies and entertainment
content.
As well as a SkyQ set-top box to sit
alongside the existing Sky+ box, a wireless Sky
Q Mini will allow on-demand streaming, with a
Sky Q app allowing personalisation of viewing
across devices, with a Sky Q hub offering
wireless connectivity. Andrew Olson, Director
of New Products, described the initiative as
offering “Fluid Viewing”.
Darroch said Sky Q was “a brilliant new
way” for customers to consume content on
their terms “It’s a system
of products that work
together to create a
whole new way of
watching TV.”
In addition, he said
that Sky Q broadened
the choice that Sky could
offer its customers as a
new, premium option to complement its
existing services. “It means we’re going to have
a bigger and better range than ever before,” he
claimed. He said that with Sky Q sitting
W
Sky launches ‘Fluid
Viewing’ Sky Q
alongside Sky+ and NOW TV, it made for three
“outstanding and complementary” platforms.
He said that each was designed to meet the
needs of different groups of customers,
suggesting that Sky Q was an “all-new” option,
offering the very best Sky experience.
According to Darroch, this extension of choice
was good news for the business. “We know
from our experience that broadening out and
innovating throughout our product range helps
us to keep our customers happy and helps us to
keep them loyal. For those who don’t yet have
Sky, it is going to create a brilliant new reason
to join in.”
Darroch said that his job
was to obtain the best content
form around the world and to
use that content to make it
easy for customers to access
that content on their terms.
He said that customers
wanted it to be easy to
navigate content and to find
what they wanted to watch. “They want TV to
be more flexible and more seamless across
more screens, and most of all, they want it to
be seamless and effortless.”
“It’s a system of
products that work
together to create a
whole new way of
watching TV.”
EC proposes crossborder content
portability
Delivering on its Digital
Single Market strategy, the
European Commission has
presented a proposal to
allow Europeans to travel
with their online content as
it acts to modernise EU
copyright rules in order, it
says, to makes them fit for
the digital age.
At present, Europeans
6 EUROMEDIA
travelling within the EU may be
cut off from online services
providing films, sports
broadcasts, music, e-books or
games that they have paid for
in their home country. The
proposed Regulation on the
cross-border portability of
online content services
addresses these restrictions in
order to allow EU residents to
travel with the digital content
they have purchased or
subscribed to at home. Crossborder portability, a new EU
“In short, our ambition was to reimagine
TV for the way people live their lives today, and
result is SkyQ,” concluded Darroch, advising
that it would be available to customers in the
UK and Ireland from early 2016. Exact details
of timing and pricing would be divulged nearer
the time.
Stephen van Rooyen, managing director,
sales and marketing, said that Sky’s embracing
of changes in customers’ viewing habits had
enabled it to grow in new and different ways.
“We’ve created the opportunity to reach new
customers with the creation of a service like
NOWTV and we’ve also made our existing
products and services so much better, creating
better loyalty for our existing customers.”
He suggested that in terms of market
segmentation, there was an opportunity for Sky
to ‘superserve’ its customers and to attract new
prospects who consume more content and
more media on more devices than ever before.
“It’s really for that media-centric consumer
that we see both in our base and across the
marketplace. And while Sky Q is really targeted
at a very specific customer type, we think it will
have a huge impact on creating a halo for the
brand.”
right for consumers, is
expected to be a reality in
2017, the same year as the
end of roaming charges in the
EU. Since it is a proposal for a
Regulation, once adopted it
will be directly applicable in all
28 EU Member States.
In addition, the
Commission has outlined its
vision of a modern EU
copyright framework. This
‘political preview’ will be
translated into legislative
proposals and policy initiatives
within six months, taking into
account all inputs from several
public consultations.
Overall, the Commission
wants to make sure that
Europeans can access a wide
legal offer of content, while
ensuring that authors and
other rights holders are better
protected and fairly
remunerated. The key sectors
of education, culture, research
and innovation will also
benefit from a more modern
and European framework.