The first fall-out from Channel 4's $140 million capture of Sky's pay-TV rights to Friends and ER emerged last week, with news that Sky executives were considering ditching their
The first fall-out from Channel 4's $140 million capture of Sky's pay-TV rights to Friends and ER emerged last week, with news that Sky executives were considering ditching their plan to put newly-commissioned comedy and drama series on Sky Premier. Depending on which side of the Isleworth fence you stand, the move is seen as Sky either wanting to make its best new shows available to the widest possible audience, or an eleventh-hour decision to shore up a channel wounded sorely, if not fatally, by the loss of two of its biggest-rating shows to a rival entertainment channel.

Sky One is effectively being repositioned against a background of its continued decline in share in multi-channel homes. In the first nine months of last year the channel averaged 4.1 per cent of multi-channel viewing, compared with 4.4 per cent in the same period in 1998. In 1995 it averaged 4.9 per cent, and in 1993 a whopping 7 per cent. What should its strategy for the future be?

See Analysis in Broadcast on Thursday 27 January for full story