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. As of 2018, following an agreement with Mediaset, Sky Italia also operates a series of subscription-based terrestrial channels offering sports, entertainment, and movies. Sky Italia is also the major sports broadcaster in Italy.
Pay TV services on Sky Italia satellite platform are encrypted in NDSVideoGuard.
History
Sky Italia was founded on 31 July 2003 by the merger of TELE+ and Stream TV.[2]
Sky Italia uses the Hot Bird satellites at 13.0°E.
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 These channels have been replaced by Sky 3D on 6 September 2011, then closed on 16 January 2018.
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 that 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 it 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, handles theatrical distribution for Vision's releases in Italy.[9] On 20 January 2020, Vision launched their own international sales arm, Vision Distribution International.[1]
On 1 October 2019, Maximo Ibarra replaces Andrea Zappia as CEO. Maximo Ibarra however left Sky Italia already 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.
Timeline
1998
December: Miro Allione, Stream's CEO, stated that News Corp signed a preliminary deal with Telecom Italia to buy 80% of Stream, but the introduction of a bill limiting the acquisition of soccer pay TV rights has made the company reconsider its plans.[10]
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 HDPVR 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).
Sky Q Platinum
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.
Sky Q Black
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.
