Sky brings online-only subscription TV


8 Dec 2008

Satellite television fans can now enjoy programming without the need for a set-top box, dish or TV. Sky is bringing its Sky Player TV to market, allowing PC and Mac owners with a broadband connection to enjoy live streaming TV and on-demand programming.

Granted there isn’t a great selection so far, with National Geographic, British Eurosport, Sky Sports, Disney and Sky News available, and with MTV 1 and Nickelodeon to come, but this is only the beginning and hopefully many more channels will be added throughout 2009.

While these represent the basic package for a subscription of €18 per month, which goes up to €50 for all the sports channels included, there is also on-demand, pay-per-download programming available.

The cool thing about this is that the live streaming channels come in a few grades of quality to suit all broadband connection speeds, but if you have a top-notch connection, you can enjoy the quality of regular TV programming across the web.

While the Sky Player has been developed using Microsoft’s Silverlight technology, it is fully compatible with both Macs and PCs. This sounds like a great new service Sky, but please bring more live-streaming channels to tempt us away from YouTube and E4 on Demand!