[cable]

Sky’s FTA strategy was never one that was committed.

The Early Digital era (2005-2011)
When Sky Three was launched, it was given some shows that were shown on Sky One but had ended their runs e.g. Hex, Futurama, Relic hunter, 10th Kingdom, Cold Case alongside filler like AirLine and Sky Travel. This was probably viewed as an olive branch by the management as these shows weren't expecting any renewals/new seasons. I recall them airing 24 season 3 but the future series never transferred. LOST/Prison Break didn't make it especially around the time they lost carriage on Virgin Media. This continued throughput the Sky3 era where they experimented with the Free Weekend Pass, the latter of which co-incided with their takeover on Virgin Media Television/Living TV Group. This caused Pick to begin to get a boost in content, Skys non drama UK originals e.g. Pineapple Dance Studios/ Ross Kemp on Gangs. Throughout this period Freeview continued to Grow and equalled and Eclipsed Sky Subscribers.

Around Digital Switchover (2011ish)
It was around the time Sky Atlantic launched, that they became bullish on their pay TV offering which except for Sports/Movies was basic entertainment. Atlantic was never offered on. good terms to Virgin Media and Sky sports news was removed from Freeview and Sky 3 was rebranded to Pick TV. in the attempt to disassociate in viewers minds free content and Sky. It was around this time that Pick began to take on shows from the former Living TV Group Channels like bravo and Channel One (ex. Virgin1). Around this time the Digital switchover was nearing completion, Freeview HD was launching and had the 2 additional muxes to play with), Sky had to put much effort into maintaining the subscribers and started to push into original production.

The Streaming Era (2015-present)
Since the digital switchover, Sky had pushed heavily into its original production, moving away from the earlier book inspired ideas like The Hogfather, Skellig and Thorne into returning series like Agatha Raisin and Brassic, COBRA their network has become genre based. During this time, the audience has become more fragmented with the rise of VOD and new streaming services which they have attempted to integrate into their line up (e.g. Netflix and Paramount+ and Discovery Plus). Linear is ever decreasing and young people tend to prefer apps. Content you pay for only has a short shelf life before its condemned to repeats.

The future (2025 -2040)
Going forward, there will be people prepared to pay for content which is likely to be well catered for by the SVOD market, and people not prepared to pay for content, which AVOD and FAST services cater for very well. With Sky, Glass or Stream is their future, overtime they will end up becoming a content aggregator as they struggle to keep up with the production budgets of the streamers and lose the gatekeeper position, they once were. MAX is potentially launching in 2025, where most premium drama from HBO is tied up in Skys current deal due to expire then. The platforms also allow targeted advertising and allows the collection of data from viewers which can be manipulated. This leaves them with their original content. A free to air channel like Sky Mix will give them an outlet for this and will allow them to suck up ad revenue. Freeview is nearing the end of life, the WRC is wanting its frequencies for mobile broadband use, technically its inferior most channels are still SD and there is only one multiplex – it simply is not the threat it once was. Freely will likely replace freeview and freesat but how successful that is remains to be seen.