Sky UK Extends Satellite TV Partnership with SES Until 2029
Global satellite provider SES, which operates a network of nearly 70 satellites that can deliver video and data services to 99% of the world’s population, has today announced an extension of their existing partnership with Sky that will see them continuing to provide capacity to support the Sky Q TV service in the UK and Ireland until the end of 2029.
Sky UK has spent the past couple of years putting a lot more effort into pushing their new internet-based streaming platforms, Sky Glass (Sky integrated streaming TV set) and Sky Stream (streaming set-top-box), which are standalone products that use your home broadband ISP and WiFi connection to stream Sky’s on-demand video content and live TV channels – without the need for a satellite dish.
However, Sky have long been expected to continue supporting existing customers of their satellite-based TV products, such as Sky Q, until around 2030 and the new deal with SES supports that strategy. The agreement reflects a multi-year contract renewal for satellite capacity and back-up services from SES’s prime video neighbourhood of 28.2/28.5 degrees East.
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SES will extend the capacity for multiple transponders, although interestingly, their complementary back-up services contract with Sky will only run until the end of 2027.
Nick Herm, Chief Business Officer at Sky, said:
“We’re pleased to continue our long-standing collaboration with SES, reinforcing our commitment to providing the best viewing experience to all customers – whether they’re watching on our much-loved Sky Q satellite platform, or over our IP products, Glass and Stream.
This contract renewal provides us with the reliability we need to continue to deliver our market-leading TV offer and broad mix of channels to Sky Q customers across the UK and Ireland.”
Norbert Hölzle, Global Head of Media at SES, added:
“This important contract renewal with Sky reflects our ongoing commitment to deliver the highest levels of performance, service reliability and reach to our customers. As one of Europe’s leading media and entertainment companies, Sky trusts our satellite network to provide its viewers with a premium TV experience. This extension underscores the value satellites continue to deliver in the evolving media landscape to broadcasters and audiences alike.”
SES’s satellites at the 28.2/28.5 degrees East orbital position currently deliver a wide range of Sky TV channels to more than 17 million households in the UK and Ireland. The deal is also good for Freesat, which uses the same satellites as Sky to deliver their free-to-air service in the UK.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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How does this affect freesat?
Just added a mention of that, but they use the same satellites, and as such it suggests Freesat will continue until at least the same date.
also worth pointing out that many of the channels “on Sky” aren’t part of this agreement. For example the other major broadcasters deal directly with SES for capacity and do the uplinking themselves or through firms like Arqiva.
2029 seems very well timed for the life expiry of the existing satellites and I’d imagine SES would be reluctant to invest in replacements without some kind of commitment – if anything they’d need to sign contracts today to get it ready in time.
By comparison, SES have committed to new satellites for some of their other orbital slots with a much wider customer base eg 19.2E for most of continental Europe.
“complementary back-up services contract” ending in 2027. What is this and does it mean anything to a Q customer ?
Possibly something like this:
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ses_explore-backup-services-with-ses-activity-7216515305680855040-om8U/
A good five more years of Sky+ ad-skipping enjoyed since 2001 unless Sky decides to encrapify SkyQ to make the transition to Sky Stream less shocking.
Well they’ve already switched to 24 month contracts.
This is absolutely going to make me play chicken with the cancellation team next contract renewala.
I just played chicken and lost. Well, TBF, it was Sky that lost. They refused to waive £90 charge to replace my non-HDR 2TB box with an HDR model. That and a 24-month contract made it a no-brainer.
Freesat box arrived today, mostly as a backup for streaming on the FireCube. Or the other way round.
NowTV for the Sky content we just can’t miss, which is mostly Brassic.
Sky Q is still a superior product to Sky stream. Stream is awful, the UI is awful, playlists is a horrible feature, not being able to get rid of part watched shows. The boxes are awful and slow.
I would happily sign up to Sky stream tomorrow if it could record live streams just like Sky Q can record live satellite streams.
but, as it stands, a lot of minor channels have no catch up ability and so would effectively become redundant to me, as i often record series to watch later.
You know sky stream records to the cloud when the show is not on catch up. There’s nothing I’ve not been able to store in my playlist.
Sometimes it’s a link to on demand, some times an app or sometimes it’s recorded.
For example setting a stand up show on Comedy Central last night was recorded as it’s not on on demand, Sky sports live matches or something on a obscure channel will also be recorded.
As far as I can tell they remain until deleted.
I know sky will never do it as they want complete control over the hardware. But would love to sky become an just an app for google/fire TV.
And no now TV isn’t the same.