SKY Italia

Infobox Company
name = SKY Italia S.r.l.

type = Subsidiary of News Corp
genre =
foundation = July 31, 2003
founder =
location_city = Rome, Italy
location_country = flagicon|ITA
location =
locations =
area_served = Italy
key_people = James Murdoch (Chairman)
Tom Mockridge (CEO)
industry = Telecommunication
products = Direct broadcast satellite
services =
market c

revenue =
operating_income =
net_income =
assets =
equity =
owner =
num_employees =
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divisions =
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homepage = [http://www.sky.it/ sky.it]
footnotes =
intl =

SKY Italia is an Italian digital satellite television platform owned by News Corporation launched the 31 july 2003. It is similar in many ways to BSkyB's Sky Digital in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and like that network it is a major sports broadcaster.

Pay TV services on SKY Italia are encrypted in NDS Videoguard. The provided Videoguard decoders are identical to the Digibox used in the UK. PACE, Amstrad and Thomson, all Digibox licencsors, produce SKY Italia boxes (SKYBOX) identical to their Digibox offerings, albeit with different branding and the potential removal of the second card slot and UHF modulator. In addition, other providers such as Italtel and Access Media produce SKY Italia boxes but not Digiboxes.

On the 22 November 2005 SKY Italia introduced MySKY - based on a new digital receiver with HDD recording capabilities and surround sound output (not previously available on the normal decoder). This service is provided at an extra charge and the decoder must be connected to a phone line. The service is functionally identical to the BSkyB Sky+.

SKY offers four types of mixing packages: Mondo, Cinema, Sport and Calcio. The first, Mondo, contains all the entertainment, music, kids, teens and culture channels and some sports channels: it's the basic mix. The Cinema package contains 9 all-movies channels. The Sport package contains SKY Sport 1, 2, 3, Extra, 16:9, Eurosport, Eurosport 2 and Yacht&Sail. The Calcio package, instead, contains 14 channels aimed at football, the most popular sport in Italy.

Some channels, (excluding the terrestrials) are able to be dubbed or captioned in English.

SKY Italia uses the Hot Bird 7A/8 satellite at 13.0°E.

Launch dates

* March 2003: Stream TV and TELE+ merge into SKY Italia.
* July 2003: SKY Italia starts to broadcast.
* August 2003: SKY TG24 starts its programming.
* November 2005: is introduced MySKY, the first PVR decoder.
* May 2006: SKY Italia launch 4 new HDTV channels (SKY Cinema HD, SKY Sport HD, National Geographic Channel HD and ).
* October 1 2007: Discovery Channel has been moved to channel 401.
* November 26 2007: SKY TG24 become available also on channel 100, replacing SKY Inside.
* April 8 2008: NASN become available on "Sport" package.
* April 23 2008: SKY Calcio 15, SKY calcio 16, SKY Calcio 17 and SKY Sport Active 3 starts its programming.
* April 30 2008: Nat Geo Music has been moved on channel 710 and become part of "Music" package; GXT has been moved on channel 146 and become part of "Entertainment" package; Cultoon has been moved on channel 148 and become part of "Entertainment" package.
* May 1 2008: Cultoon has been renamed into Cooltoon.
* May 5 2008: RaiSport Satellite has been rebranded as RaiSport più
* May 27 2008: is introduced MySKY HD, the first High-Definition PVR decoder.
* June 1 2008: Studio Universal closes down on SKY's EPG 320, replaced by MGM Channel
* July 242008: Eurosport HD has been launched on SKY's EPG 209.
* August 30 2008: Sky Sport 24 has been launched on SKY's EPG 200.

Channels

References

ee also

SKY HD

External links

* [http://www.sky.it/ SKY Italia Website]
* [http://guidatv.sky.it/ SKY Italia TV Guide]
* [http://www.newscorp.com/operations/dbst.html SKY Italia on News Corporation Website]