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BSkyB is dead, long live Sky
Following the merger of Sky Television and British Satellite Broadcasting in 1990, BSkyB grew to become the biggest pay-TV broadcaster in the UK. Domestic success was fine, but in July, the company decided it was time to cast its net wider, so it agreed a deal with 21st Century Fox to snap up Sky Italia and buy a 57-percent majority share of Sky Deutschland. That transaction has now been approved, creating what Sky says is now "Europe's leading entertainment company." While much will stay the same, some things inevitably must change. You see, now Sky has divisions in Italy and Germany (and 20 million total customers), the British Sky Broadcasting Group name befit a company embarking on an expansion across Europe. As a result, it's changing its name to Sky and listing itself on the London Stock Exchange under the symbol SKY. Shareholders will need to approve the name change first, but we're sure that's just a formality.
Sky spends £5 billion to become one of Europe's biggest pay-TV operators
Rumors of an assault on Europe have circled for quite some time, but today BSkyB has finally made a move to expand its pay-TV empire outside of the UK. The company today announced it has agreed to pay 21st Century Fox a total of £4.9 billion ($8.33 billion) to acquire Sky Italia and buy the majority share (57 percent) of Sky Deutschland. If the deal is given the green light by regulators, the newly-formed Sky Europe would emerge with almost 20 million European customers.
Formula One Management makes it official: 2011 season will be the first in HD
After many years of waiting we'll finally get to experience Formula 1 racing the way we should, in high definition. Sky Deutschland and the BBC have already confirmed they will carry the new HD feed, and formula One Management has confirmed it will be available to all host broadcasters and will include all track sessions in 42 Mb/s MPEG-2 form. The widescreen PAL feed we've been watching has been good enough to fool a few into believing what they saw on Speed HD and others was true HD, but we can't wait to see the difference when the season kicks off. Update: Speed TV has also officially announced it will carry the HD signal for US viewers this season starting with the opener in Bahrain March 13 and installing 'continuous fiber service' to guarantee the best picture quality.
