Sky Germany

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sky Germany GmbH
legal form GmbH
founding 1990 (as Premiere AG)
Seat Unterfoehring , GermanyGermanyGermany 
management Devesh Raj
Number of employees 1,800 (2020)
sales 2.02 billion euros (2015/16)
Branch media
Website sky.de
Status: July 12, 2020

Logo until August 4, 2020

The Sky Germany GmbH is a German media group based in Unterföhring in Munich . The company operates a pay TV service through its subsidiary Sky Deutschland Fernsehen GmbH & Co.KG and has been a subsidiary of the US Comcast Corporation since October 2018 . Sky has broadcasting rights in Germany and Austria ; in Switzerland , selected packages can be obtained via the Teleclub pay-TV service, and in Luxembourg via the Post Luxembourg , Eltrona, and Orange Luxembourg pay-TV service . Sky Deutschland has over 5 million subscribers.

Headquarters in Unterföhring
Main entrance to the headquarters

Sky Deutschland GmbH emerged from Sky Deutschland AG on September 27, 2015 through conversion. This was preceded by the purchase of the minority shareholders' shares in the free float by the majority shareholder. After a squeeze-out procedure and subsequent delisting of the shares from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange , which was announced by Sky Deutschland AG on June 8, 2015 and was completed on July 23, 2015, all of the shares in Sky Deutschland AG were acquired via Sky German Holdings GmbH held by the British Sky Limited . The last trading day on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange was September 15, 2015.

Business model

On the one hand, Sky operates its own stations, on the other hand, Sky serves other providers as a platform in Germany and Austria. Sky can be received legally in Germany and Austria. The complete program can be received via the Astra satellite, with most cable network operators - depending on the operator - varying proportions of programs. You can also receive Sky via the IPTV platforms of Deutsche Telekom , 1und1 and Vodafone .

The two main pillars of the program are, on the one hand, films that can be seen on free-to-air television before they are broadcast, and live sports events, especially football. TV series form a growing share. In addition, special interests are served on special interest channels.

Sky relies on the technology and customer base of the television station Premiere , which the company replaced in 2009.

A subscription is required to receive the Sky program. Sky encrypts its channels. A digital receiver with decryption software or a CI + module and a smart card are required on the customer side . Depending on the scope of the subscription, different program packages are activated on this smart card.

Without a subscription, it is possible to use some of the Sky content via various own services on the Internet and, since December 1, 2016, the Sky Sport News HD program .

Sky is financed for the most part from subscription revenues and partly from advertising income.

history

Logo exchange in Unterföhring
Logo of the Premiere brand (2007 to July 3, 2009)
Logo of the Premiere brand before 2007

On July 4, 2009, Sky launched its programming in Germany and Austria. This offer is the direct successor to Premiere's programs . On July 9, 2009, what was then Premiere AG was renamed Sky Deutschland AG.

The first CEO of Sky Deutschland AG was the Australian Mark Williams . On December 9, 2009, Sky announced that Williams would step down on March 30, 2010. He was replaced on April 1, 2010 by the American Brian Sullivan . On March 26, 2015, it was announced that Sullivan will be leaving his position on June 24, 2015 and will be replaced by Carsten Schmidt , who had previously been Director of Sports, Advertising Sales & Internet at Sky.

Sky took over the technical infrastructure and the customer base of the station Premiere, which emerged in 1990 from the Swiss Teleclub's German business. In 1999, Premiere merged with competitor DF1 to form “Premiere World”. In 2002 the high losses of Premiere World led to the insolvency of the Kirch Group , and a bankruptcy of Premiere World itself could only just be averted. The company renamed itself in Premiere and went public in 2005.

Technical development, offer platforms

In contrast to Premiere, which has been relying on certification of digital receivers from various manufacturers since the 2000s, Sky pursues a policy of in-house digital receivers. Sky can still be received with receivers from different manufacturers, but some additional offers can only be used with the in-house Sky receivers.

Since November 18, 2015, all programs on the Sky platform (with the exception of programs on the HD + platform) can only be received via satellite via DVB-S2 .

Sky +

In August 2009, Sky presented its own digital receiver Pace Sky HD 1. With the Pace S PVR HD 1, an HD recorder was offered in May 2010. The hard drive built into it had a capacity of 320 GB. Sky has been offering external hard drives since December 2010. Sky markets the combination of digital receiver and external hard drive under the name “Sky +”. On March 26, 2013, Sky introduced an external hard drive with a capacity of 2 TB.

HD, 3D and UHD

Its predecessor, Premiere, began broadcasting in HD early on. The first regular operation of an HD channel in Germany and Austria were the three channels Premiere HD , Premiere HD Sport and Premiere HD Thema on November 19, 2005, since the 2006 soccer World Cup in consistently “native” HDTV. The first HD live broadcast was the Bundesliga classic 1. FC Köln against FC Schalke 04 .

Sky started broadcasting in 2009 with six HD channels.

Since March 14, 2010, Sky has regularly offered films, sporting events, documentaries and concerts in 3D in the event channel Sky 3D . It was broadcast side-by-side. Regular operation started on October 13, 2010. On July 1, 2017, Sky 3D was switched off again.

The first UHD live broadcast of a soccer game was that of FC Bayern Munich against Werder Bremen on April 26, 2014, and the first UHD concert broadcast and test broadcast with the Fantastischen Vier on December 20, 2014.

In mid-July 2015, Sky announced that it had reserved capacity for the transmission of Ultra HD with the satellite operator Astra. At the beginning of October 2016, Sky Bundesliga UHD and Sky Sport UHD, the first regular channels in UHD, started. These are but only in conjunction with Sky Q available.

Offers beyond linear television

Sky Home / Sky On Demand (formerly Sky Anytime)

The video-on-demand service that Sky launched in August 2011 under Sky Anytime can be used with the in-house hard drive receivers . This is an offline video library. Half of the hard disks are used to store films streamed parallel to the broadcast signal and to keep them ready for retrieval. The framework is provided by an application that can be started in the digital receiver. The contents are sorted by topic. Depending on the consumer's subscription, he can watch the programs that match the content. Some of the content is only available for an additional fee - Sky markets this offer under the name “Sky Select”.

Since December 2014, Sky has been offering its customers Sky Home in conjunction with a hard drive receiver to use an extended stream via an Internet connection ( IPTV ). With the announcement of quarterly figures in April 2015, it was announced that this offer would also be made available to customers with a cable connection.

In November 2015, the Sky Anytime service was renamed Sky On Demand .

Sky Go

Since April 2011, Sky has been offering a large part of its live programs and selected films on its Go platform . The use of Sky Go is linked to a subscription to Sky and the content that you can access depends on the content to which you have subscribed. Sky Go can be used on computers and many smartphones. Sky technically limits access to Sky Go to four devices in total and one device at the same time.

On August 3, 2015, Sky announced that the chargeable additional option Sky Go Extra would be launched. The desired content is downloaded from Sky Go and can then be used without an Internet connection. You can also watch on two devices at the same time.

Sky Ticket (formerly Sky Online)

Sky Ticket logo

Regardless of a regular Sky subscription, you can subscribe to content from the normal Sky program on a monthly basis. This content can be accessed in the same way as Sky Go . Mainly film and series content is offered, while live sports content can be booked as pay-per-view. On August 26, 2016 (at the start of the 2016/17 Bundesliga season ), Sky Online was replaced by Sky Ticket. Today (as of February 24, 2020) you can choose between three packages. The entertainment, cinema and sport packages can be subscribed to and canceled on a monthly basis. The entertainment package includes numerous series, the cinema package includes films shortly after the cinema and the sports package includes live sports, which can also be seen with a regular subscription. On December 13, 2019, it was announced that Sky is dividing the sports package into two parts. The Supersport ticket continues to include all sports broadcasts. In addition there was the sports ticket, which should appeal to new customers due to its lower price. The difference is that only the conference broadcasts are available for the Champions League and the national leagues. With the English Premiere League and the DFB-Pokal, however, you can also see the individual games in the cheaper package. Other sports such as Formula 1, tennis and handball are fully included.

Sky Select

Sky Select logo

Sky refers to its nVOD program or pay-per-view offer as Sky Select . It is mainly about current films, less often also the transmission of events. These programs are broadcast with a time delay on channels specially reserved for this purpose and activated individually if necessary. Since May 2013, a return channel of the in-house receiver can be used to order in addition to telephone and web.

Sky box sets

The Sky Box Sets are an archive that mainly consists of series. The content is not broadcast on channels, but can be played on demand. The program includes series from a wide variety of genres. Sky in-house productions such as Chernobyl or Gomorrah are also available on demand. Access to the Sky Box Sets is available with the Sky Entertainment Package or with a Sky Ticket.

Encryption

Sky has been using the Nagravision encryption system from Kudelski since 2003 , which was initially considered secure and could only be circumvented using the so-called card sharing method, in which the required decoder keys had to be calculated using an actually existing subscription and distributed over the Internet. From November 2005 the encryption could be bypassed with a special smart card. Premiere took legal action against dealers and buyers of this card. Decryption was later also possible using a pure software emulator .

From August 2008, Premiere introduced a new encryption system. In addition to a revised version of the previous Nagravision system, Sky primarily uses the NDS - Videoguard software from News Corp. (NDS Middleware Mediahighway). For the conversion, the receiver software was gradually updated and new smart cards issued.

Since the beginning of June 2010, Sky has been issuing V13 (NDS) cards to satellite customers, or V14 (NDS) since July 2012 and V15 (NDS) since 2018 and initially only exchanged these for S02 (Nagravision) in exceptional cases. Sky is also no longer certifying or issuing satellite receivers with an integrated Nagra system.

Furthermore, since February 2014 old S02 (Nagravision) cards have been exchanged for the V14 (NDS) including new Sky receivers in order to enable customers to have "the latest receiver technology and access to all innovative Sky services". These cards are married (paired) with the receiver; with them it is no longer possible to use receivers from third-party providers or to operate the card in another device certified by Sky. By blocking the EMMs ( Entitlement Management Messages ) and manually writing the activation and renewal messages , it is possible to bypass the forced pairing.

Between November 10 and 11, 2015, Nagravision was finally shut down for broadcasting via satellite by Sky.

Group structure

The group today consists of Sky Deutschland GmbH, which acts as the parent company for the actual television broadcaster, the subsidiary Sky Deutschland Fernsehen GmbH & Co. KG . Sky Deutschland GmbH also holds 100% of Sky Deutschland Verwaltungs-GmbH .

Sky Germany

Sky Deutschland Fernsehen GmbH & Co. KG as the core company of the group has several tasks. On the one hand, it acts as a platform operator and maintains customer relationships with subscribers. On the other hand, it acts as the organizer of most of the group's own broadcasters. Over the years of the group's existence, the first function has gained in importance significantly at the expense of the last, as an ever larger proportion of the platform's channels are produced externally.

Sky Austria

Sky Deutschland Fernsehen GmbH & Co. KG, in turn, has several subsidiaries, such as the provider of pay-TV programs for Austria, Sky Österreich Fernsehen GmbH . Sky Austria organizes the Sport Austria program, which is also marketed in Germany, and maintains customer relationships with subscribers in Austria.

Further investments

In addition, all shares are held in Sky Deutschland Service Center GmbH in Schwerin and in Sky Deutschland Customer Center GmbH in Teltow , which are responsible for customer service at Sky, and Sky Hotel Entertainment GmbH , which is part of the Sky program for hotels drives out. In addition, Sky currently owns 100% of Sky Media Network GmbH ( Premium Media Solutions GmbH until February 29, 2012 ), the advertising time marketer of the platform.

Customer service is mainly handled by the two in-house service centers in Schwerin and Teltow, which employ over 1000 people. In addition, Sky works with various external partners throughout Germany who provide customer services on behalf of Sky.

Shareholder structure up to the conversion into a GmbH

On January 7, 2008, 21st Century Fox (then: News Corporation ), a US media conglomerate headed by Rupert Murdoch , announced that it had acquired 14.58 percent of Sky Deutschland from Unitymedia . The share has been gradually increased since then. In 2009 the proportion of shares passed the 30% mark for the first time. A mandatory takeover offer provided for under German stock corporation law did not have to be made to the small shareholders at this time, as the German supervisory authority BaFin had granted an application by 21st Century Fox for exemption from the regulation. By 2010, the stake was gradually increased to 49.90%. In January 2013, 21st Century Fox held the absolute majority of shares for the first time. The share was increased to 54.8% as part of a capital increase.

On July 25, 2014, the takeover of the shares in Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia previously held by the media entrepreneur Rupert Murdoch via the 21st Century Fox group to the British pay station British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) was announced. BSkyB bought 100 percent of Sky Italia for the equivalent of three billion euros. At Sky Deutschland, the majority stake of 57.4 percent was taken over for 3.7 billion euros. It was planned to bundle the pay channels under Sky Europe.

Most recently, the share capital of Sky Deutschland AG was EUR 931,114,937 in spring 2015, and the number of shares issued was 931,114,937. The voluntary public takeover offer by Sky German Holdings GmbH was completed on November 12, 2014 . At that time, Sky German Holdings GmbH held 89.05% of the shares. According to a press release by BSkyB on November 12, 2014, Sky German Holdings GmbH acquired additional shares in Sky Deutschland after the acceptance period had ended, which increased the stake to 89.71%. According to a media release from Sky plc on January 7, 2015, the voting rights share of Sky German Holdings GmbH in Sky Deutschland AG on January 7, 2015 was 95.80%. In the squeeze-out procedure , the last remaining minority shareholders were paid cash compensation of EUR 6.68 per share in order to acquire their shares. The AG was then converted into a GmbH.

Program offer

In-house productions

Original title genre premiere Episodes status
Babylon Berlin Thriller October 13, 2017 16 in 2+ seasons Extended for a third season.
The boat war 23rd November 2018 16 in 2+ seasons
The passport Thriller January 25, 2019 8 in 1+ seasons Extended for a second season.
8 days End time 1st March 2019 8th Miniseries
Hausen horror 2020 9 Shooting started in September 2019
Souls drama probably 2020 8th
Me and the others drama End of 2020 6th Shooting will start in spring 2020

Self-produced stations

On the one hand, Sky Deutschland broadcasts its own stations, and on the other hand, programs from other providers are broadcast via this platform. The in-house-produced channels have two main focuses: films and series as well as sports.

Sports

Series / shows

Movie

Culture / art

Special programming

Occasionally, self-produced film channels are renamed on special occasions. Before the start of the fifth season of the television series Game of Thrones , Sky Hits HD was renamed Sky Thrones HD .

On the occasion of the theatrical release of the James Bond film James Bond 007: Specter , the Sky channel Sky Hits HD was renamed Sky 007 HD for almost two months in October and November 2015 ; all previously produced James Bond films and accompanying documentaries were repeatedly broadcast on the station. During this marketing campaign there was no replacement for the films otherwise broadcast on Sky Hits HD .

In the past, the station Sky Hits or Sky Hits HD was given the name Sky Christmas during the Christmas season with a corresponding program focus.

Big brother

From the fifth season in 2004 Sky (before that premiere) produced Big Brother programs in cooperation with various broadcasters . The extra set up channel usually showed events from the studio around the clock for an extra fee. In 2015, both the Celebrity Big Brother formats and the regular TV show were broadcast after a one-year break.

Programs produced in-house

Soccer

Premiere football studio
Cameraman from Premiere at a soccer match in the Merkur Arena in Graz

The football offer currently consists of the 1st and 2nd Bundesliga, the DFB-Pokal , the UEFA Champions League and the Austrian Bundesliga and the two lower classes, the 2nd division and the regional division (see program). It is accompanied by various football commentators and moderators . The best-known representative is Marcel Reif , who was the chief commentator at Sky until the end of the 2015/16 soccer season. Wolff-Christoph Fuss took over his post .

DFB Cup

Sky has been broadcasting the DFB Cup since the 2008/09 season . All 63 games will be broadcast live in HDTV as well as in the conference. In addition, Sky broadcasts 54 games exclusively. In addition, the drawing of one game round per season takes place as part of a Sky broadcast. The DFB-Pokal can be seen on Sky at least until the 2021/22 season. [outdated]

Football Bundesliga

For the first time on March 2, 1991 - Eintracht Frankfurt won 4: 3 against 1. FC Kaiserslautern - Premiere broadcast a top game in the German Bundesliga live once a week and has continued to expand the coverage over the years.

With the start of the 2000/01 season , Premiere broadcast all Bundesliga matches live for the first time.

In December 2005, the subsidiary of the cable network operator Unitymedia arena , which had not yet appeared, won the tender for the TV rights to the Bundesliga for the seasons 2006/07 to 2008/09. For the first time in a long time, Premiere had no live reporting from the German elite class. However, arena subsequently faced technical, organizational and ultimately financial problems. So it was possible to win the long-standing service provider Plazamedia, who was also active for Premiere, as the producer of the programs and rent a transponder on the Astra satellite, but cable distribution was the biggest problem for the cable network operator Unitymedia for example with the largest cable network operator and competitor Kabel Deutschland not agree on a spread. The distribution in this network could only be secured in the last few meters through a cooperation with the previous rights holder Premiere, who thus also had a foot in the Bundesliga door again in the cable.

During this rights period, Premiere produced Deutsche Telekom's Bundesliga service on IPTV. Even if the broadcast was de facto closed to the public, Premiere had found a way to maintain the extensive and expensive Bundesliga editorial staff, which turned out to be decisive after just one year.

After the Federal Cartel Office had rejected a more far-reaching cooperation between arena and Premiere that went beyond the Kabel Deutschland cable network, where Premiere would have been allowed to offer the arena station to all customers via all distribution channels, Unitymedia was no longer able to carry out the arena project in this Continue to operate form. For this reason - this time with the blessing of the Federal Cartel Office - from the 2007/08 season onwards, arena transferred its rights to the Bundesliga to Premiere, who were once again the rights holders of the Bundesliga. From then on, Premiere only produced the Bundesliga again.

Since the beginning of the 2009/10 season, Sky has again been in direct and exclusive possession of the TV rights via cable, satellite and web TV on the Internet. At the same time, a new game plan was introduced, which significantly increases the program area of ​​the Bundesliga in the Sky program with up to nine kick-off times in the two federal leagues.

On April 17, 2012, Sky received all pay-TV rights for the Bundesliga from the DFL for four years from the 2013/14 season to the 2016/17 season. You passed against Deutsche Telekom with LIGA total! who previously held the IPTV and mobile rights. For this, Sky pays the record sum of an average of 485.7 million euros per season. Since the 2013/14 season, Sky has also been broadcasting all games in the two German leagues in HD .

In June 2016, the DFL u. a. award the auditory (e.g. radio) and visual (e.g. TV) rights to the 1st and 2nd Bundesliga and the DFL Supercup. Due to changed package structures, the DFL will collect 4.64 billion euros by the 2020/21 season. These changed structures did not allow all games of the 1st Bundesliga to be shown exclusively on Sky. In addition to Sky, Eurosport 2 HD Xtra has been showing the DFL Supercup and the 1st Bundesliga live since the 2017/18 season: 30 Friday evening games at 8.30 p.m., five Sunday games at 1.30 p.m., five Monday evening games at 8.30 p.m. and the four Relegation matches. ZDF broadcasts individual live games on free TV. The majority of the games remain exclusive to Sky. The station pays the DFL EUR 876 million per season.

UEFA Champions League

In September 2005, the company acquired the free TV and pay TV rights to the UEFA Champions League for an initial three years from the 2006/2007 season . This step caused a stir among football fans and clubs, who saw the real-time broadcast on free television at risk. In retrospect, the fear turned out to be unfounded. Premiere continued to broadcast one game per round live on free-to-air television under the title Champions TV in a program window on the Sat.1 channel .

For the 2009/10 season , Sat.1 acquired the “Free TV” rights for one game per week directly from UEFA, while Sky acquired the “Pay TV” rights to all games. For the first time, the rights package also includes all games from the last qualifying round, which since then have also been broadcast by Sky to the usual extent - all games live and in conference.

Sky also received the transmission rights to the UEFA Champions League for the 2012/13 season until mid-2015. The rights relate to the live and deferred transmission of all UEFA Champions League matches as well as the highlights programs broadcast on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Since this season, Sky has been using its own Champions League program format in the form of a live broadcast. On every UEFA Champions League match day from 7:00 p.m. to midnight, the moderators in the Sky Studio in Ismaning guide through the program, in which alternating guests as well as private studio guests take part.

The “free TV” broadcasting rights switched from Sat.1 to ZDF from the 2012/13 season until mid-2015 . The scope of the transmission rights is roughly identical to the exploitation package that Sat.1 previously held. ZDF can broadcast one match per game week live, as well as the final of the competition on a Saturday and the UEFA Super Cup. In contrast to the program structure of the private broadcaster Sat.1, after the actual broadcast, the ZDF shows a summary of the games that took place in parallel, directly and without commercial breaks.

In December 2013, Sky succeeded in extending the broadcasting rights until the 2017/18 season. Sky secured the rights to the live broadcasts and the highlights via all distribution channels. Customers could watch the games on TV, on the web, on iPhone or iPad or on the Xbox360. 128 of the 146 encounters may be broadcast exclusively on the Sky channels.

For the same period, ZDF received the right to broadcast up to 18 games per season, including the knockout rounds with German participation, the final and the UEFA Super Cup, as part of the “free TV” broadcast. Should only one German team be represented in the competition after the group stage, the ZDF had the opportunity for the first time to show these games on a Tuesday evening.

With the reassignment of the TV rights to the UEFA Champions League, part of the reporting will migrate to streaming competitor DAZN from 2018 . DAZN has the exclusive transmission rights for 104 of the 125 Champions League games, 110 of which can be seen on the streaming portal. Sky broadcasts 34 games, mostly selected individual games and conferences. On group match days, only one game is played in full on Sky, the remaining 7 games can be seen exclusively on DAZN. In addition, only the semi-finals and finals can be freely received on public television.

Sky sports bars have the option of showing all Champions League games on two channels (DAZN 1 Bar HD & DAZN 2 Bar HD). Sky private subscribers cannot receive these channels.

From the 2021/22 season, Sky has lost the rights to broadcast the Champions League to Amazon and DAZN . It is still open whether the rights will be partially sold to Sky.

UEFA Europa League

Since September 2009, Sky has broadcast selected UEFA Europa League matches - including all matches of the German and Austrian clubs - live. After each matchday, detailed summaries of the broadcasted games and short summaries of the other games were shown after the matches. From the quarter-finals onwards, all games were broadcast live individually or in the conference. With the reassignment of TV rights to the UEFA Europa League in 2017, Sky lost all broadcasts of the Europa League from the 2018/19 to 2020/21 season to competitor DAZN and free TV partner RTL. In future, 190 of the 205 Europa League pairings per season will be broadcast exclusively on the Internet, while the free TV partners RTL (Germany) and Puls4 (Austria) will only show 15 of the 205 games on free-to-air television.

Sky had also secured the rights to broadcast live and delayed broadcasts of all Europa League games for the period from 2012 to 2015. Since 2012, Sky has also had additional rights to the UEFA Europa League by being able to select a second live game on an exclusive basis.

The free TV rights to the UEFA Europa League were given to ProSiebenSat.1 TV Deutschland GmbH , which broadcasts one game per game day on Thursdays live via its program channel kabel eins .

At the beginning of 2015 it was announced that Sky Deutschland had extended the pay-TV rights to all games with German participation including the 2017/2018 season. Constantin Medien AG received the free TV rights to the UEFA Europa League . On each of the six match days of the group phase, the broadcaster Sport1 will broadcast one match each, in the knockout rounds a return match and the final. The match, which will be broadcast on the respective game day, can be selected by the broadcaster itself with the so-called “first pick”.

formula 1

From the German Grand Prix in Hockenheim in 1996 onwards, all races were broadcast live, initially on DF1 , and from the 1999 Austrian Grand Prix until the merger, also in parallel on Premiere. The commentators Jacques Schulz and the former racing driver Marc Surer have been there from the start , while Burkhard Nuppeney and Heinz Prüller were additional commentators at times . There are commercial breaks in the Formula 1 broadcasts only before the start and after the finish. However, around 60 seconds of split-screen advertising per race has been planned since the 2013 season . Until 2009 , the entire race weekend was broadcast in several freely selectable channels, since 2010 this has only been valid for qualification and the race itself. All preliminary reports for the races in the 2012 season were not broadcast by RTL from the track, but exclusively produced from the studio in Munich. In addition, the races from Bahrain, Singapore, Japan, Korea and India were not commented on live from the track by Jacques Schulz and Marc Surer, but only from a commentary box from Munich. From the 2013 season , Sascha Roos succeeded Jacques Schulz, who stepped down as a commentator for personal reasons.

Before the conversion from Premiere to Sky, Formula 1 was considered the second most important sport in the Premiere sports rights portfolio after commercial football. However, the priority decreased significantly from 2009 onwards. The previous contract, which was renewed on January 30, 2013, ran until the end of the 2015 season . On August 21, 2015, Sky announced that it would also broadcast Formula 1 up to and including the 2017 season . On January 25, 2018, Sky announced that it would not extend the contract with the new Formula 1 owner Liberty Media . Sky wanted the exclusive rights to Formula 1. Liberty Media was not ready for this because RTL holds the transmission rights for the free TV.

From the 2019 season , Sky will again be able to broadcast Formula 1 for the 2019 and 2020 seasons and will again share the rights with RTL.

After RTL announced that it would no longer broadcast Formula 1 from the 2021 season, Sky has secured the exclusive rights for Formula 1. 4 selected races will also be held on free TV as well as a 30-minute highlight show after each race on Sky Sport News .

In addition, a new channel "Sky Sport F1" will go on air from 2021. This channel will only broadcast Formula 1 and the sub-classes Formula 2 , Formula 3 and the Porsche Supercup for 24 hours and will also use material from the international Sky team.

Handball

Since the 2013/14 season, Sky has been showing the EHF Champions League games that were previously broadcast by Eurosport. From the 2017/18 season, Sky also acquired the rights to broadcast the handball Bundesliga , which were previously held by Sport1.

In-house productions and involvement in the film industry

In the early years of Premiere, directed by CLT-UFA and CANAL +, there were unencrypted in-house productions such as 0137 , Zapping and Kalkofes Mattscheibe . The company also appeared as a co-producer of television films, mostly cooperating with ARD or RTL. These films were then shown first on Premiere before the free TV premiere. After the takeover of Kirch, Premiere decided against further film productions. Another excursion into the world of coproduction, which was initiated under Georg Kofler, was canceled due to the loss of Bundesliga rights and the resulting financial problems. The US series Over There remained Premiere's last co-production. While Premiere subsequently refrained from any in-house productions outside of the sports program and even had its daily and weekly magazines Sky Magazin and Sky Lounge produced by external companies, Sky is now producing at least these programs itself again. In January 2011 it was announced that Sky was the new main sponsor of the Jupiter Prize , published by Cinema magazine . For the first time, Sky viewers can vote for the “Best International TV Series”.

Moderators

Well-known moderators (also former)

Well-known commentators (including former ones)

Criticism of Sky

Price policy towards sports bars

Sky's pricing policy gave rise to increased criticism in the area of ​​gastronomy (“Sky Sportsbars”). The subscription prices have been increased several times since March 2013. The reason for this was that Sky no longer based the fee solely on the size of the customer operation. New price-determining criteria are now the purchasing power, population density and “sports affinity” of the region as well as the proximity to an event location (football stadium). For a pub in Berlin-Friedrichshagen, for example, this meant almost tripling the original fee from 220 to 600 euros as of October 2014. Some restaurateurs then terminated their contract with Sky; In some cases, Sky then reduced its fee claim in order to persuade the restaurateurs to stay. This corresponds to the pattern that Sky also uses in private customer business: If the private customer cancels, he will regularly be offered high “return discounts” (over 50% of the list price).

Commercial breaks within current programs

On January 20, 2016 it was announced that Sky is giving up the previously actively advertised freedom of advertising within current programs; So-called interruption advertising was previously only common in advertising-financed free TV and was seen as a distinction from pay TV . The first commercial breaks and program information during the current program have been broadcast regularly on the Sky channel Sky Krimi since mid-January 2016 . In a press release, the broadcaster announced that in future commercial breaks will only be excluded on the two channels Sky Cinema HD and Sky Atlantic HD ; for Sky, the introduction of advertising is also a "service issue" for customers. The reference to advertising-free television was gradually removed from Sky’s own advertising with the new offer and package structure introduced in December 2015.

Even before the introduction of commercial breaks in the current program, Sky showed advertising during selected sports broadcasts, for example during half-time breaks in football broadcasts, as well as program information in the credits of films (L advertising formats in which the main image is reduced in size).

Unauthorized telephone advertising

Sky has been criticized several times for unauthorized telephone advertising . Fines totaling 161,500 euros were imposed in twelve proceedings. These fines had become final. In December 2019, the Federal Network Agency again imposed a fine of 250,000 euros on the company. Sky did not check the consent for advertising calls with the necessary care and did not process revocations properly.

Web links

Commons : Sky Deutschland  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Sky Deutschland AG becomes Sky Deutschland GmbH after the change of legal form . November 27, 2015. Retrieved November 27, 2015.
  2. ↑ That's us . sky.de. Retrieved July 12, 2020
  3. ↑ Key figures for Sky Deutschland 2015/16 , accessed on July 12, 2020
  4. ↑ Major participations. In: Sky Corporate Website. At info.Sky.de, accessed on December 30, 2019.
  5. ↑ Sky offer page from Eltrona ( Memento of the original from July 29, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed July 29, 2016. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / imagin.lu
  6. ↑ Orange Luxembourg's Sky offer page , accessed on July 29, 2016.
  7. ↑ Sky Deutschland celebrates the highest number of subscribers , message from Heise from July 27, 2017, accessed on the same day.
  8. ↑ Determination of the cash compensation for the squeeze-out by Sky German Holdings GmbH ( Memento of the original from July 1, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Communication from Sky Deutschland dated June 8, 2015, accessed on September 5, 2015. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / ir.sky.de
  9. ↑ a b Sky plc is now completely owned by Sky Deutschland , report from medienmagazin.de from July 23, 2015, accessed on September 5, 2015.
  10. ↑ Squeeze-out of minority shareholders completed ( memento of September 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), notification from Sky Deutschland AG of September 15, 2015, accessed on the same day.
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  39. ↑ Now it's official: “Babylon Berlin” will be continued. In: mediabiz.de. Blickpunkt: Film, July 24, 2018, archived from the original on July 25, 2018 ; accessed on July 25, 2018 .
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  73. ↑ ProSiebenSat.1 TV Deutschland GmbH will acquire UEFA Europa League for three seasons from 2012/2013 ( memento of the original from August 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Press release of ProSiebenSat.1 TV Deutschland GmbH from June 21, 2012, accessed on April 14, 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.prosiebensat1.com
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