Sky Television plc Sky Television plc Sky Television plc was a public limited company which operated a nine-channel satellite television service, launched by Rupert Murdoch's News International on 5 February 1989. Sky Television and its rival British Satellite Broadcasting suffered large financial losses and merged on 2 November 1990 to form British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB). Programming merger took effect on 1 December 1990. Sky Television plc was originally Satellite Television Ltd. (SATV), a consortium set up by Brian Haynes in November 1980. Haynes was a former journalist employed at Thames Television. In 1979 he produced a documentary for the "TV Eye" strand which
British Satellite Broadcasting believing it would encourage more users, especially with its dedicated movie channel. BSB's original satellite channels were: Around the time of the licence award, Amstrad withdrew its backing as they believed it was not possible to sell a satellite dish and receiver for £250. Australian businessman Alan Bond joined the consortium along with Reed International, Chargeurs, Next plc and London Merchant Securities amongst others. BSB earmarked the bulk of the first round of financing for buying and launching two satellites (for redundancy and provision of further channels later) and planned a second round close to the commencement of broadcasting operations.