Sky High On 3D
BSkyB’s Big Push In U.K. Offer Lessons for U.S. Players

By George Winslow

Over the last two years, what may be the world’s largest effort to create three-dimensional TV programming has emerged in the United Kingdom, where pay TV giant British Sky Broadcasting has produced dozens of events in 3D. Last month (April 3), BSkyB became the first multichannel provider outside of Japan to launch a 3D channel, Sky 3D.That channel, which now reaches more than 1,000 pubs and clubs in the United Kingdom with a potential audience of more than 100,000 for high-profile soccer matches, has made News Corp.- controlled Sky a crucial test case in the emergence of 3D technologies. Its efforts offer important lessons in both business models and emerging production techniques for 3D that a number of U.S. programmers and multichannel providers have been watching closely as they develop their own 3D offering, according to programmers and equipment vendors. ‘We immediately saw that we had a viable business with 3D,’ and could move quickly,’ BSkyB’s director of product design and TV product development Brian Lenz said.

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