SKY CORPORATIONS

Sky Corporations

Introduction

Sky began broadcasting via satellite in 1994 and is engaged in acquiring, promoting, selling and distributing digital entertainment programming via satellite to residential and commercial subscribers. The company was part of the late Howard Hughes' empire when it started, and it was partly owned by News Corporation and Liberty Media from 2004 until it was spun off as Sky in late 2006. The company sold Sirius XM Radio in 2010, but its operations now include three sports channels in addition to its satellite broadcasting system in the United States. US revenue is about 93.9% of total company revenue. Sky also owns and operates four TV networks that are not part of this industry. Three of these are sports networks that have influenced the company's relationship with the NFL and some collegiate sports franchises. The company is able to leverage these networks to gain subscribers through popular promotions, such as the "NFL Sunday Ticket," which offered Sky's subscribers the largest selection of Sunday football throughout the season last year. In addition to providing a plethora of channels beyond cable and local content, Sky takes advantage of technologies to provide services for added value to consumers. For example, in 2009, the company debuted the user interface called Score Guide for people to track sports scores on their TVs. The company has added features to this service as the technology becomes available, and it now helps people find blacked-out sports games on different channels. Sky has expanded its features surrounding sports because of the company's competitive advantage in sports thanks to offerings like the "NFL Sunday Ticket." Sky has a fleet of 12 satellites from which it broadcasts signals to consumers. It expects to acquire another satellite by 2013 to provide additional services and backup capacity. The company gathers its programming content in two broadcast centers and an additional five uplink facilities throughout the United States, enabling the company to send redundant transmissions to satellites to avoid service interruptions to its customers. The company has more than 18.5 million subscribers and provides more than 2,000 digital video and audio channels, including more than 130 HDTV channels.

The Business' Social and Environmental Challenges

By the nature of its activities, Sky is unequivocally exposed to the vast cares of the environment that plague the world of today's environmentally conscious leaders. This is directly related to the enormous number of energy consuming devices that are at the centre of its operations. These digiboxes (Set-top boxes) present in each customer home pose both energy bill challenges to the user, and CO2 emissions to the environment. However, the organization also faces an unprecedented challenge inherent to the business of entertainment. This spans social and cultural boundaries. This is because, not with standing the fact that proliferation of cultural dilution in communities has numerous roots, the media probably remains, in public opinion, the number one aggressor.

Industry Analysis: Pestel Framework

Political Factors

Sky is functioning well and providing services with its networks all around the ...