The UK pay television market has long been dominated by Sky, formerly known as British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB). Since its formation in 1990, Sky has transformed television in the UK and Europe through satellite broadcasting, digital innovation, and premium entertainment services.
BSkyB was created through the merger of the UK’s two rival satellite broadcasters, Sky Television and British Satellite Broadcasting. The original service used analogue transmissions from the Astra 1 satellites at 19.2° East and quickly became one of the most influential television platforms in Europe.
A major turning point came on 1 October 1998 with the launch of Sky Digital. The new digital satellite service offered improved picture and sound quality, interactive features, and a huge increase in channel capacity compared to the ageing analogue system. The success of digital broadcasting led to the closure of Sky’s analogue satellite service in 2001.
The rapid growth of Sky Digital required additional satellite capacity, leading to UK television services moving to the Astra 2 satellite group at 28.2° East. This orbital position remains the home of Sky and Freesat services today.
At its peak, Sky had more than 11 million UK subscribers and helped redefine how audiences watched television, sport, movies, and news.
Freesat From Sky
Freesat From Sky offers all the main “free to air” UK TV channels, and also a handful of “free to view” channels.
Most of the free to air channels on Freesat From Sky are also available on Freesat. Free to air channels are channels that are available subscription and encryption free,meaning they do not require any form of viewing card to watch.
Free to View are channels that are available subscription free, but are encrypted. This means they require a “free to view” or a “Freesat From Sky” viewing card.
Equipment required for Satellite TV
To watch Sky TV pay channels, users required a Sky digibox, a Sky viewing card and a satellite dish with Low Noise Block LNB. The satellite dish collects the signals and reflects them to the LNB which collects the signals and sends then down the cable to the Sky digibox which then turns those signals into pictures and sounds.
Sky TV pay channels are broadcast with encryption, and can only be viewed by the use of a Sky subscription card. The amount of Sky TV pay channels that are “unblocked” will depend on the subscription charge you pay.
The Sky TV pay channels are currently transmitted from three UK TV satellites : Astra 2E,Astra 2F and Astra 2G.
In the UK reception of UK TV channels via satellite is very easy.
Sky TV Reception in Europe and Spain
The majority of the UK TV pay channels are on the European beam of the Astra 2E, Astra 2Fand Astra 2G satellites. The European beam give very good reception across the majority of mainland Spain. This means that the UK TV pay channels can be received in Europe and Spain on a satellite dish measuring a minimum of 80x85cm.
Some UK TV pay channels are on the “UK beam” or “UK Spot beam” of the Astra 2E, Astra 2F and Astra 2G satellites. This UK beam signal footprint is different to the previous UK TV satellites UK beam. This has meant that reception of channels on the new Astra 2 satellites will be different to previous reception.
In the areas between Valencia and Alicante, the UK TV pay channels on the new Astra 2 satellites UK beam can still be received on a small satellite dish – as small as a 110x120cm satellite dish, with a 125x135cm satellite dish being the recommended size satellite dish.
However, in other areas of Spain, reception of these UK TV pay channels on the new Astra 2 satellites UK beam has become harder. For example, in areas such as Barcelona, Catalonia and Zaragoza, you need at least a 1.8m satellite dish to receive these channels on the Astra 2F UK beam, whereas previously you only needed a smaller 80cm satellite dish. It is a similar story in the south of Spain, in areas like the Costa del Sol, Malaga, Almeria, Seville, Gibraltar and even Portugal, where even the larger 2.4m satellite dishes are struggling to receive these channels on the Astra 2 satellites UK beam.
The expected mission lifespan of the current UK TV satellites, Astra 2E, Astra 2F and Astra 2Gis approximately 12 to 15 years. So we can expect no further changes to reception of UK TV channels via satellite until around 2025.