Murdoch's back at the helm at Sky

It's like phone hacking never happened...
James Murdoch has been appointed as the Chairman of Sky, increasing the influence of the Murdoch dynasty as the UK's leading pay TV empire. Full story at The Guardian. I'd expect Rupert Murdoch to make another attempt to take over the whole of Sky now, and it's not like a British government is going to stand in his way, is it?
In recent times the relationship between Sky and Virgin Media has been pretty amicable; VM needs the Sky channels and content and, aside from Sky Atlantic, pretty much has it and in HD too, and Sky benefits from the audience of 4m Virgin Media households.
With TV services I don't think Sky has regarded VM as a serious commercial rival for many years, more a partner where they always have the upper hand. Besides, Sky seems to have turned its heavy artillery on BT and Netflix/Amazon these days, which makes Virgin a useful little brother in the content battles ahead.

Sky Broadband Porn Filters 'on by default' for new customers

Sky will block "adult content" by default for all new customers, the company has announced.

Sky said the move would result in "much greater use of home filters", but customers could still opt-out if they wanted to.

35% of existing Sky Broadband households have the porn filters on already, compared to 12% of Virgin, 14% of TalkTalk and 6% of BT. 

The broadcast giant said it will now email all existing customers, asking them if they would like the filter to be switched on.

If the email is ignored, Sky’s policy is to turn on the filter automatically, as it did following a similar email sent in January, when all customers who joined prior to November 2013 were contacted.

4k boxes from Sky? Don't hold your breath

Sky boss Jeremy Darroch played down the idea of a new 4k ready box from Sky – reported as Project Ethan – explaining the rate of change was different to what it was ten or even five years ago. Rather than replace the entire set-top box population it was more likely that changes will be made to the software.
“Ultra HD is to be determined – it does really well on big screens, but less impactful [sic] on smaller screens,” said Darroch. “The jury is still out as to how big an idea it will be, we’re thinking about the box power, how we build into the software stack and the broadcast infrastructure that goes alongside that.”
NOW TV, Sky’s pay-as-you-go service is to receive a revamped set-top, again based on the Roku platform. NOW will also receive a new logo. Rumours persist that it will be a full 1080p service - the current box, based on the old Roku LT, is only 720p. Expect a price hike too - despite service problems with the live channels the On Demand content has proven hugely popular and Sky are projecting even more success for the service going forward.

Sky announces results and new services

From MediaGuardian:

BSkyB is to launch an internet television service in the first half of this year and will give customers the chance to pay for downloading films without a contract or satellite dish. Sky said the new service will allow customers to pay to watch its content on devices connected to the internet, including PCs, laptops, smartphones, games consoles and TVs. It will allow customers to choose whether to pay monthly, or rent a movie on a pay-as-you-go basis, it added. The new service will be available to non-subscribers via different packages. These include a monthly payment for unlimited access to Sky Movies, or viewers can rent a single film on a simple, pay-as-you-go basis.

BSkyB announced yesterday that the BBC iPlayer and ITV Player TV catchup services are to be available to its subscribers for the first time via the Sky Anytime+ video-on-demand offering.

Sky's new venture comes as it announced a slowdown in the number of subscribers signing up to its television services in the three months to 31 December. The figure was 40,000, down from 140,000 during the same period the previous year.