The Launch of Sky Network Television (1990)

Pay television commenced on 18 May 1990 with Sky Network Television available to viewers at a cost for sports, news and movie channels, going by the names of Sky Sport, Sky News and Sky Movies respectively. This TVNZ News item was filed by Michael Wilson.
Special thanks to Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision (TVNZ Collection) for the use of this clip.
HISTORY
Sky Network Television was founded by Craig Heatley, Terry Jarvis, Trevor Farmer, Alan Gibbs and Brian Green in 1987 as Sky Media Limited.
In April 1988, the New Zealand Government announced its intention to deregulate broadcasting and open up the use of the UHF band for extra television services. Sky's original plans to transmit a single channel via satellite changed to use the UHF system to transmit multi-channels terrestrially, and Sky successfully obtained four national UHF networks in February 1990.
As Sky Media changed its name to Sky Network Television Limited in 1989, the company purchased the studios of Northern Television at 10 Panorama Road, Mt Wellington, from Wilson & Horton and began a $12 million refurbishment. ESPN, TVNZ, Tappenden Construction and the Todd Group became shareholders.
The concept of a pay television service was new to New Zealand and Sky had early problems. These included viewer acceptance of subscriber television. It faced difficulty in educating retailers and customers on the use of the original decoders. However, this problem was eased with the introduction of easier-to-use decoders that allowed greater viewer flexibility.
When Sky began in Auckland, Hamilton and Tauranga in 1990, there were three channels on scrambled UHF frequencies: Sky Movies, Sky Sport and Sky News. In 1994, Sky launched two further channels, Discovery Channel and Orange, Discovery Channel broadcast on a channel already used by Trackside (formerly Action TV).
Later, funding allowed Sky to extend its coverage throughout most of New Zealand: In 1991, the company expanded to Rotorua, Wellington and Christchurch. Then in 1994, the company expanded to Hawkes Bay, Manawatu, Southland and Otago, followed by the Wairarapa, Taupo, and Wanganui regions in 1995. Its final UHF expansion, in 1996, was to Taranaki, Whangarei, and eastern Bay of Plenty.
In April 1997, Sky introduced a nationwide analogue direct broadcasting via satellite (DBS) service over the Optus B1 satellite. This allowed it to offer more channels and interactive options, as well as nationwide coverage. It upgraded it to a digital service in December 1998.
The unreliability of the aging Optus B1 satellite was highlighted when the DBS service went offline just before 7pm NZ time (8am London, 3am New York) on 30 March 2006. The interruption affected service to over 550,000 customers and caused many decoders to advise customers of "rain fade." Due to excessive volume of calls to the Sky toll-free help-desk, Sky posted update messages on their website advising customers that they were working with Optus to restore service by midnight. Sky credited customers with one day's subscription fees as compensation for the downtime at a cost to the company of NZ$1.5 million. Sky switched its DBS service to the Optus D1 satellite on 15 November 2006. It later expanded its transponder capacity on this satellite to allow for extra channels and HD broadcasts.
Sky's UHF service was switched off on 11 March 2010 at midnight, and used a portion of the freed up UHF and radio spectrum to launch its joint venture, Igloo, in December 2012. The remaining unused spectrum was relinquished back to the Government and will be recycled to support new broadcasting ventures.
At the time of writing, Sky had 989,569 subscribers consisting of 585,248 satellite subscribers and 404,321 streaming subscribers.

[@purefoldnz3070]

and now Sky TV is going down in flames.

[@samatutahi4032]

Kia ora Patrick awesome content i remember going to nana & poppas place in Oparure, King Country every Saturday for the night & enjoyed watching Channel Orange & Sky 1. Great memories 😊

[@PatrickTePouNZ]

Thanks for sharing!

[@JayMusicNZ]

2021...
Sky likes to repeat everything constantly.
Sky likes to repeat everything constantly...

[@stevegordon5689]

I've had sky since 1993 and not as much as an email saying thank you for your custom! The only reason i still subscribe to it is my parents inherited it from me!

[@NicholasWingoldenkiwi2095]

I don't know how much sky TV is worth these days since I don't know the difference between that and the other media streaming services

[@angelrogo]

ITV (BSB) attacking Sky, and 8 months later begging for merging.

[@sienekebd]

This is New Zealand.......

[@danielwilliamson6180]

I first got Sky Television in 1999.

[@PatrickTePouNZ]

Which one - UHF or satellite?

[@danielwilliamson6180]

@@PatrickTePouNZ Satellite.

[@PatrickTePouNZ]

@@danielwilliamson6180 In April 1997, Sky introduced a nationwide analogue direct broadcasting via satellite (DBS) service over the Optus B1 satellite. This allowed it to offer more channels and interactive options, as well as nationwide coverage. It upgraded it to a digital service in December 1998. It's a fact.

[@NicholasWingoldenkiwi2095]

@@PatrickTePouNZ I can't believe how expensive Sky TV is compared to the likes of Freeview and all the other streaming services that's as big as the price of Internet Home phone and Broadband connection all across New Zealand how it compares to the present day of owning Home Entertainent

[@visualsbysenpai]

​@@NicholasWingoldenkiwi2095 it's got more free channels than freeview and pay for the the good channel

[@LoganJohnsonLJP]

11.25 dollars a week? 45 a month? In 1990, when houses would cost 70,000, damn they were a rip off then and are still a rip off now! lol

[@angelrogo]

That's why no one subscribed to any of them, Sky or BSB. In December 1990 BSB was in bankruptcy and so was the company resulting from the merger of both in December 1991. In September 1993 everything changed with Sky Multichannels.

[@Spi-AU]

​​@@angelrogoThis isn't the British Sky though, this is the New Zealand one which is unrelated.
Certainly agree with the parent post though about how much the UHF early adopters were coughing up, NZ$50 a month effectively for 3 channels at the time, not to mention the decoder plus potentially needing a new UHF antenna... 😵‍💫
..

[@kinghock]

All the people in the comments whinging about Sky yet they're still around? Hmm...

[@LuannOsbourne]

agreed

[@kennethdrewary1094]

It will never catch on, Mark my words. Lol

[@digitalmediafan]

Nice girl at 0.46 Wonder what happened to her hmm

[@iwiatua6735]

first got sky in 1994 HBO channel played better movies

[@PatrickTePouNZ]

For your information, Sky Television sold the Sky Movies channel to HBO Asia during 1992/93. It became known as HBO but later reverted to its former name Sky Movies, after HBO Asia re-sold the channel to Sky Television in 1998.