Sky TV history

British Sky Broadcasting Group was founded on April 25, 1988 and is headquartered in Middlesex, the United Kingdom.“

By the time BSB finally launched its service in April 1990, SkyTV had already placed 750,000 satellite dishes.

By September 1991, the weekly losses had been reduced to £1.5M a week, Rupert Murdoch said “there were strong financial marketing and political reason[s] for making the compromise merger instead of letting BSB die.

Completed in January 1995, the offering of 20 percent of the BSkyB's shares valued the company at £4 billion.

While BSkyB's fortunes continued to rise--with revenues topping £1 billion and pre-tax profits of £257 million by year-end 1996--the company has also hastened to join the next, and perhaps greatest, revolution in television history: digital broadcasting.

BSkyB plans as well to begin offering digital television broadcasting services in 1997--with an increase in channels to as many as 200 or more.

Indeed, the launch of BSkyB's digital service in 1998 was enormously successful.

The company introduced the first interactive advertising campaigns in 2000 and rolled out Sky News Active, the world's first interactive television news service.

The Economist explained the frenzy surrounding digital television in a May 2001 article, claiming that "digital brings many features, among them a clearer picture and the ability to squeeze more channels into the box.

Ball announced his intentions to leave his post in October 2003, causing many to speculate about the company's future leadership.