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Italian satellite pay-television platform From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sky Italia S.r.l. is an Italian satellite television platform owned by the American media conglomerate Comcast. Sky Italia also broadcasts three national free-to-air television channels: TV8, Cielo, and Sky TG24.
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| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Telecommunications |
| Founded | 31 July 2003 |
| Founder | Rupert Murdoch |
| Headquarters | , Italy |
Area served | Italy San Marino Vatican City |
Key people | Andrea Duilio (CEO) |
| Products | Direct-broadcast satellite OTT streaming television broadband provider MVNO |
| Parent | Sky Group |
| Subsidiaries | NOW S.r.l. Vision Distribution (joint venture with Cattleya, Wildside, Lucisano Media Group, Palomar and Indiana Production[1]) |
| Website | www |
Pay TV services on the Sky Italia satellite platform are broadcast on the Hot Bird satellites at 13.0°E and are encrypted in NDS VideoGuard.
Sky Italia was founded on 31 July 2003 by the merger of TELE+ and Stream TV.[2]
On 28 June 2010, Sky Italia changed its brands and logos, making them identical to the BSkyB ones.
On 1 October 2010, Sky activated its first 3D channel, Sky Sport 3D, available without any extra cost to the Sport pack subscribers. The very first event Sky Sport 3D aired was the 2010 Ryder Cup. On 25 December 2010, Sky launched another 3D channel: Sky Cinema 3D, airing 3D movies, available for free for Cinema pack subscribers. These channels were replaced by Sky 3D on 6 September 2011, and then closed on 16 January 2018.
Tom Mockridge, the then head of Sky Italia, replaced Rebekah Brooks as chief executive of News International after she resigned on 15 July 2011.[3]
Andrea Zappia replaced Tom Mockridge as CEO on 1 August 2011.[4] On 7 October 2011 Sky Italia announced it reached the 5 million subscribers benchmark.
Following News Corporation's split into two on 28 June 2013, to create two separate companies, 21st Century Fox (the re-branded News Corporation), and the spin-off company New News Corp, the 100% stake held by News Corporation in Sky Italia was retained by the re-branded 21st Century Fox.
Following media speculation, on 12 May 2014 Sky Italia's sister company, BSkyB, confirmed it was in talks with its largest shareholder, 21st Century Fox, about acquiring 21st Century Fox's 57.4% stake in Sky Deutschland and its 100% stake in Sky Italia. The enlarged company would be likely to be called "Sky Europe" and will consolidate 21st Century Fox's European digital TV assets into one company.[5][6] The sale was announced on 25 July 2014, which was subject to regulatory and shareholder approval.[7] The acquisition was completed on 13 November.[8]
In 2016, Sky Italia created Vision Distribution, a film distribution venture with five Italian production companies: Wildside (owned by Fremantle), Cattleya (backed by ITV Studios), Lucisano Media Group, Palomar and Indiana Production. Since the beginning of August 2019, Universal Pictures, Sky's corporate cousin via NBCUniversal, has handled theatrical distribution for Vision's releases in Italy.[9] On 20 January 2020, Vision launched their international sales arm, Vision Distribution International.[1]
Since October 2018, Sky Italia, as well as Sky UK, Sky Ireland and Sky Deutschland, is controlled by Comcast.
On 1 October 2019, Maximo Ibarra replaced Andrea Zappia as CEO. Maximo Ibarra, however, had already left Sky Italia on 30 June 2021.
On 16 June 2020, Sky Italia launched Sky Wifi, its ultra-broadband service.
On 6 September 2021, Andrea Duilio started as the new CEO of Sky Italia.
Sky HD is the brand name of the HDTV service launched by Sky Italia on 20 April 2006 in Italy – during the 2006 FIFA World Cup – to enable high definition channels on Sky Italia to be viewed. The service requires the user to have a Sky Box HD (distributed by Sky Italia), and an HDTV with HDCP enabled.
A HD PVR decoder called My Sky HD was launched on 26 May 2008 (on 20 December 2008 was sold a particular edition designed by Fendi in favour of the international organisation Child Priority).
On 29 November 2017, Sky launched Sky Q Platinum, a set-top box enabled to view programmes in 4K HDR and to use the multiscreen wireless service.
On 2 July 2018, Sky launched Sky Q Black, a set-top box identical to the Sky Q Platinum which enables the 4K HDR service but not the multiscreen wireless.
Here are the channels available in HD:
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| 31 July 2003 – 3 September 2006 | 4 September 2006 – 27 June 2010 | 28 June 2010 – 25 September 2013 | 26 September 2013 – 1 July 2018 | 2 July 2018 – 13 September 2020 | in use from 14 September 2020 |
Sky Italia offers a range of channels that are grouped into:
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