Is sky phasing out the use of satellite dishes and going exclusively to television through broad

[stereohaven]

Note to self, if post isn't visible or disappears, just wait longer! 🤣

[TimmyBGood]

---

@pingPoo0 wrote:

Why would Astra launch new satillites for continental European TV?    They did because the demand was projected.

---

There's a significantly larger population (c120 million households) under the footprint of the mainland platform at 19.2E, with, on average, poorer internet access.

As you say, demand is projected.  If there isn't that demand forecast in the UK, or the likely scale is not sufficient, then why would an investor in SES want their money spent on new hardware for what's already under ten million households on a UK/RoI service with a downward trajectory on user numbers, which would be expected to pay back over at least the next two decades?

It's also entirely possible that Comcast sees the UK, with rather fewer Sky subscribers than Xfinity users in a single reasonably sized US state, as a testbed.  Without a guaranteed long-term Sky contract, no-one is going to put up a replacement satellite to serve a couple of small islands off the extreme west coast of Europe.

[TimmyBGood]

The SES press release for the Astra 1P launch says:

Our market reach on 19.2 is 119 million households between different markets. Very strong markets are Germany, France, Spain where we offer a large number of free-to-air services, but also pay-TV platforms to our consumers. And in all the other European markets which we cover we have a large household reach, where they also receive free-to-air content and some pay-TV content. As an example, in Spain, 7.4 million households are connected, in France 75 million. So this is a substantial number of households and connectivity that we give our customers to convey their content to their consumer base.”

https://www.svgeurope.org/blog/headlines/watch-this-space-ses-set-to-launch-most-powerful-satellite-... 

[Chodley]

---

@pingPoo0 wrote:

Harley. Quite the opposite in fact. I know BSB want satallite TV to die 🙂

June 24th 2024: " Successful launch of Astra 1P secures future of pan-European satellite TV.
New TV satellite Astra 1P was successfully launched last night. The satellite will serve 119 million TV households across Europe, securing the future of some satellite TV services until the end of the next decade. ... By 2028, Astra 1P is due to be joined by a second new satellite – Astra 1Q"

https://rxtvinfo.com/2024/successful-launch-of-astra-1p-secures-future-of-pan-european-satellite-tv/

---

Not sure if you have a different definition of "time" but for me, the end of the next decade is still included in it.

Oh and "BSB" disappeared about 20 years ago, it's just been Sky since then (and obviously they have been a subsidiary of Comcast for 5 years now)

personally I'm ambivalent. I like satellite but I don't love a dish on the house and I've got fttp now so anything internet delivered is fine too.

[Geoff+A+Wood]

Sky are loosing money and it's very expensive to use satellites and the only way to stop the cashing flowing out. Is to cease using satellites 

[TimmyBGood]

@Geoff+A+Wood 

Sky Group has been a division of the Comcast Corporation since 2018, and can lose money for as long as Comcast chooses to tolerate losses in parts of its global operation: quarterly figures suggest they misplaced somewhere between one and two billion dollars on the Peacock streaming service in their NBCU division in 2024, for example (actually an improvement on the $2.75 billion loss for 2023)

Satellite data transit cost for their branded channels is relatively small beans in the overall finances of Sky (and their £224 million losses in 2023) : it's more likely that Comcast, which has no history in satellite broadcasting but has always been a cable television company, sees internet distribution as the most realistic future and perhaps, as I suggested above, is using the relatively small UK/RoI market as a place to test that out.

[Tammie3]

When Sky gets rid of their satellite service, I will not continue with them. The Sky streaming box does not allow you to record all channels in Ireland, so it will be bye bye Sky. I do not want to rely on my broadband to be able to watch TV 

[spannernick1]

`Is Sky Q being phased out?

The short answer is yes, Sky Q is being phased out. 

Sky seemed to always have the intention to introduce TV via broadband, known better as streaming, as they hinted at such back when Sky Q was launched in 2016.

This has now become the case, with many people opting for stream-based services over live TV. As such, Sky Q, which has been and will remain satellite-based TV, is slowly being dropped from the company's offerings. `

https://www.digital-tv.co.uk/guides/is-sky-q-being-phased-out

The was posted 3 months ago.

But Sky Q is only 8 years old, I guess its like a game console but you don't get a slim version... 🙂

Is it true, I hope not, I had Sky Q and it does exactly what it says on the tin, I liked it, just can't get it now, maybe one day I will again....?

[GD1]

@spannernick1   I have merged your post to this existing thread that is discussing the same subject, a new thread isn't required.

[spannernick1]

I only noticed this post after post it... 🙂
They will need to make a verson of Sky Q for boradband, I like Sky Q better then Sky Steam, it has a better interface.

[GD1]

---

@spannernick1 wrote:

I only noticed this post after post it... 🙂
They will need to make a verson of Sky Q for boradband, I like Sky Q better then Sky Steam, it has a better interface.

---

They already have, it's called Sky Stream.

[Invisiblename]

---

@spannernick1 wrote:

`Is Sky Q being phased out?

The short answer is yes, Sky Q is being phased out. 

Sky seemed to always have the intention to introduce TV via broadband, known better as streaming, as they hinted at such back when Sky Q was launched in 2016.

This has now become the case, with many people opting for stream-based services over live TV. As such, Sky Q, which has been and will remain satellite-based TV, is slowly being dropped from the company's offerings. `

https://www.digital-tv.co.uk/guides/is-sky-q-being-phased-out

The was posted 3 months ago.

But Sky Q is only 8 years old, I guess its like a game console but you don't get a slim version... 🙂

Is it true, I hope not, I had Sky Q and it does exactly what it says on the tin, I liked it, just can't get it now, maybe one day I will again....?

---

It goes on to say "Sky Q will remain in place and operational for the foreseeable future.  As long as there are still satellites in operation, satellite TV will remain - although the writing is on the wall for satellite TV."

[GD1]

---

@Invisiblename wrote:

---

@spannernick1 wrote:

`Is Sky Q being phased out?

The short answer is yes, Sky Q is being phased out. 

Sky seemed to always have the intention to introduce TV via broadband, known better as streaming, as they hinted at such back when Sky Q was launched in 2016.

This has now become the case, with many people opting for stream-based services over live TV. As such, Sky Q, which has been and will remain satellite-based TV, is slowly being dropped from the company's offerings. `

https://www.digital-tv.co.uk/guides/is-sky-q-being-phased-out

The was posted 3 months ago.

But Sky Q is only 8 years old, I guess its like a game console but you don't get a slim version... 🙂

Is it true, I hope not, I had Sky Q and it does exactly what it says on the tin, I liked it, just can't get it now, maybe one day I will again....?

---

It goes on to say "Sky Q will remain in place and operational for the foreseeable future.  As long as there are still satellites in operation, satellite TV will remain - although the writing is on the wall for satellite TV."

---

Certainly at 28E, SES's other Oribital slot at 19E has just got a new bird 1P as that covers Europe so the market is much much bigger than the UK.

[TimmyBGood]

---

@spannernick1 wrote:

They will need to make a verson of Sky Q for boradband

---

They did, and as I've mentioned in similar threads, it even got released in Austria and Italy.  There's now zero chance of 'Q without a dish' ever landing in the UK because Q is a legacy Sky system rather than a Comcast platform.

[TimmyBGood]

@spannernick1 

https://www.skygroup.sky/article/award-winning-sky-q-to-launch-without-a-satellite-dish-bringing-sky... 

Note the date: this is two years before Comcast purchased Sky Group.