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
Television in the Republic of Ireland rural areas. Other than Virgin Media, the only other operators providing analogue and digital cable systems are Crossan CableComm which operates in Longford, Smyths Cablevision, which operates in Cavan, and Casey Cablevision which operates in Dungarvan, County Waterford. Direct broadcast satellite service has been available since the late 1980s with the arrival of free-to-air satellite Astra and subscription service Sky Television. In 1985 a pan-European satellite service was launched through SES. The service provided viewers with pan-European channels which targeted the entire continent. On 5 February 1989, when Sky Television launched. British Satellite Broadcasting, which was also available in Ireland,