British Satellite Broadcasting British Satellite Broadcasting British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB) was a television company, headquartered in London, that provided direct broadcast satellite television services to the United Kingdom. The company was merged with Sky Television plc on 2 November 1990 to form British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB). It started broadcasting on 25 March 1990. In 1977, the World Administrative Radio Conference assigned each country five high-powered channels for direct broadcast by satellite (DBS) for domestic use. In 1982, after being awarded two of the channels, the BBC proposed its own satellite service, with two conditions: During Autumn 1983, the cost of Unisat was found
British Satellite Broadcasting with the burden of huge losses, rapidly increasing debts and ongoing startup costs. On 2 November 1990, a 50:50 merger was announced to form a single company, formally "British Sky Broadcasting" (BSkyB), but marketed as Sky. As the company focused on the Astra system, which was not subject to IBA regulation, the Marcopolo satellites were withdrawn and eventually sold (Marcopolo I in December 1993 to NSAB of Sweden and Marcopolo II in July 1992 to Telenor of Norway). Sky News began broadcasting services to Scandinavia from the Thor satellites. NSAB operated Marcopolo I (as Sirius 1) until successfully sending it