Free to premium subscribers

Ken Young, vnunet.com 11 Jan 2006

BSkyB, the UK-based subscription TV business, is gearing up to launch services that make its content available on PCs, mobile phones and iPods.

The media giant will allow customers who subscribe to at least two premium channels to download films and sports highlights on to their computers at no charge.

Another service will provide clips of sports, news and entertainment programmes to mobile phones, and news programming will be downloadable to Apple`s iPod and similar players, also at no cost.

More than 200 films will be made available at launch growing to 1,000 at a `` later date``. Spider-Man 2 and Dr Strangelove are expected to be highlights at launch. It is expected that full length films will take an hour to download using a 2Mb broadband connection.

Over 1,000 sports video clips will be provided including some Premiership highlights. The mobile service will also provide access to Sky Bet accounts which offer details of betting odds and allow bets to be placed.

Once downloaded, films and clips can be stored for 30 days before they are automatically deleted.

To get sports and movies on broadband and mobile, a Sky subscription worth at least £40.50 per month is needed, while to receive either movies or sport clips the cost is £34.

Nate Elliott, an analyst at JupiterResearch, said: ``This is a really neat offering and it is good to see a TV operator getting involved with the move to video downloads.

``It is really just an extension of something BSkyB was already doing, but it shows that it is building on its acquisition of Easynet and creating new ways for consumers to gain access to content.``