Sky Italia S.r.l., trading as Sky, is an Italian satellite television platform owned by the American media conglomerate Comcast, via the British media conglomerate Sky Group. Sky Italia also broadcasts three national free-to-air television channels: TV8, Cielo, and Sky TG24. Pay TV services on the Sky Italia satellite platform are broadcast on the Hot Bird satellites at 13.0°E and are encrypted in NDS VideoGuard.
History
Sky Italia was founded on 31 July 2003 by the merger of TELE+ and Stream TV. 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 were replaced by Sky 3D on 6 September 2011, and then closed on 16 January 2018. Tom Mockridge, the then head of Sky Italia, replaced Rebekah Brooks as chief executive of News International after she resigned on 15 July 2011.
Andrea Zappia replaced Tom Mockridge as CEO on 1 August 2011. 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 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 likely be called "Sky Europe" and would consolidate 21st Century Fox's European digital TV assets into one company. The sale was announced on 25 July 2014, which was subject to regulatory and shareholder approval. The acquisition was completed on 13 November.
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, has handled theatrical distribution for Vision's releases in Italy. On 20 January 2020, Vision launched their international sales arm, Vision Distribution International.
Since October 2018, Sky Italia, as well as Sky UK, Sky Ireland and Sky Deutschland, has been controlled by Comcast. On 1 October 2019, Maximo Ibarra replaced Andrea Zappia as CEO. Maximo Ibarra, however, left Sky Italia 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.
1999
April: 35% of Stream is acquired by News Corp.
2002
June: TELE+ is acquired by News Corp.
2003
March: the European Commission approves the merger between TELE+ and Stream TV.
31 July: Sky Italia is founded.
31 August: Sky TG24 is launched as a rolling news channel.
2004
April: Sky Italia abandons SECA encryption system to switch to the NDS, managed by the News Corporation.
1 August: Sky launches weather news channel, Sky Meteo 24.
November: Sky's subscribers reach 3 million.
2005
May: Sky Italia are awarded the broadcast rights to the 2006 FIFA World Cup.
November: Sky Italia launches the My Sky decoder with PVR functionality.
2006
May: Sky launches its first high definition channels: Sky Cinema HD, Sky Sport HD, National Geographic Channel HD and Next:HD.
December: Sky's subscribers reach 4 million.
2007
April: Fox airs the first TV drama created by an Italian pay television channel, Boris.
May: Sky are awarded the broadcast rights for Formula One for two and a half years.
May: Cooltoon anime programming is launched.
November: A selection of Sky channels become available via IPTV on Telecom Italia, Fastweb and Wind.
2008
February: Sky are awarded the broadcast rights for the 2012 Summer Olympics.
May: Sky launches My Sky HD.
30 August: Sky launches sports news channel, Sky Sport 24.
December: VAT on subscriptions is increased from 10% to 20%.
2009
January: Sky are awarded the broadcast rights for the FIFA Confederations Cup and the Six Nations Championship.
April: Sky launches Sky Uno and Sky Primafila HD.
August: Sky increases its high-definition offering to 12 channels.
September: Sky announces the Sky Digital Key, a USB Key with terrestrial decoder functions.
December:
Sky On Demand service launches.
Sky launches free-to-air channel Cielo.
2010
January: All Serie A matches begin transmitting in high-definition.
April: Sky launches three Sky Movies channels in high-definition, bringing the total number of HD channels to 25.
June:
Sky changes its brand identity with a new logo, similar to that used by BSkyB.
Mondiali 1–4 launch for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
August: The number of high-definition channels reaches 36.
October: The 2010 Ryder Cup final is the first sports event to be broadcast in 3D.
November:
Sky's subscribers reach 4.8 million.
2011
January: Avatar is the most watched film on Italian pay TV, with an audience of 1.3 million viewers.
February: Sky are awarded the broadcast rights for the 2011 Copa América, 2011 and 2012 Copa Sudamericana and 2012 Copa Libertadores.
March: Sky Cinema Passion and Sky Cinema Comedy launch.
May: Sky are awarded the broadcast rights for X Factor.