Sky Go in Germany: A profile of the Connected TV Award winner

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    Sky Deutschland won the ‘Outstanding Achievement in Connected TV Award 2013′ this year for its Sky Go multiscreen TV service after impressing the judges with the impact and scope of the service in Germany and Austria. The service also received one of the two awards for ‘Best Use of OTT by a Pay TV Operator’.The service exemplifies how Pay TV operators are increasing their reach using multiple devices and how premium content rights, like Bundesliga football, can be worked harder. A key feature of the Sky Go service is the live premium sports, which you can now watch at home on additional screens or on-the-go. But this service covers the full range of entertainment, including special provision for children, HBO content through the Sky Atlantic offering, and movies.Sky Go is available on PC, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch and the Xbox 360, making Sky Deutschland one of a few platform operators in Europe offering services on the Microsoft game console. More tech-savvy consumers can navigate through programmes using the Xbox Kinect gesture control. You can watch on up to two devices at a time and HD streaming is available when on Wi-Fi.The service was launched in April 2011 and received 7.6 million customer logins during that year. In 2012 this rose to 33.2 million, an increase of 337%. In its awards submission, Sky Deutschland contended that Sky Go marked the beginning of a new TV era in Germany and Austria, given the choice customers are being given about where they can watch, and the judges were sympathetic to this view.

    As with all TV Everywhere services, the content available to consumers depends on their TV subscription package. Content is king, as we all know, so the presence of Sky Sport channels including Sky Sport News HD and the Bundesliga package, hundreds of top box-office movies from the Sky Film service, the best US-series on-demand and exclusive sports video clips from the Sky Sport News HD Datacenter are compelling. There are over 10,000 hours of programming made available  throughout the year.

    There is an area of Sky Go dedicated to children, with programmes and movies on-demand updated constantly. The content in this zone is editorially selected and has a child-orientated user interface and an additional ‘kid lock’. At any television conference you attend today, you can hear how children are embracing the multi-screen world with both hands, or just the one hand when you are talking about the popular iPod Touch, for example!

    The service also acts as a companion to main television viewing and that includes a companion live sport statistics service, together with social media integration, and of course a full EPG.

    In these awards, the judges are looking for innovation, leadership, good timing when it comes to market entry, the successful delivery of services or products, and an obvious impact or potential market impact, among other things. In the context of an increasingly competitive TV landscape that includes enhanced broadcaster services as well as OTT, this service is a significant introduction and one that illustrates nicely how Pay TV operators can harness OTT delivery for their own benefit.

    You can find out the full awards results here.


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