Sky TV Confirms Broadcast For Air NZ Cup

Sky Television Confirms Broadcast Arrangements For The Air New Zealand Cup Top Six And Repechage

SKY Television today confirmed that the broadcasting schedule for the Top Six and Repechage rounds in the Air New Zealand Cup has been finalised.

The schedule for the next three weekends of the Air New Zealand Cup will see a match played on two consecutive Thursday nights, as well as a Friday night double-header on two of the weekends.

The New Zealand Rugby Union has confirmed that this will be a three week trial which will be reviewed based on a number of factors including feedback from fans, viewers, and the unions themselves.

Kevin Cameron, SKY Television’s Director of Programming – Sport, says that finalising the draw was a major logistical exercise taking into account a number of factors including union preference, resource and player welfare.

“SKY was always keen to introduce a Thursday night rugby slot as we believe that this is something that the fans and the viewers, as well as several provincial unions wanted. The announcement today underpins our commitment to New Zealand rugby and our continuing support of the New Zealand Rugby Union. The addition of a Thursday night game to SKY’s sports programming line-up gives rugby fans even more opportunity to support their favourite team,” says Mr Cameron.

About SKY Television

SKY Television (SKY), broadcasting via both UHF and DTH is New Zealand’s pre-eminent Pay TV operator, offering a wide range of sports, movies, music, on-demand and general content across more than 80 channels. SKY’s channel line-up includes 6 sports channels, 5 movie channels, 7 general entertainment channels, 4 documentary channels, 3 news channels, 4 children’s channels, as well as other niche channels. (At 18 August 2006, SKY had 667,270 subscribers).

SKY launched as a three-channel UHF service in 1990, with two further channels added four years later. SKY’s UHF signal reaches more than 83% of the country’s 1.5 million households. In December 1998 it launched a digital satellite service, extending its reach to the whole country. SKY also offers pay-per-view movies, live events and interactive services including Skybet, the Weather Channel, and games channels Mind Games and Playin’ TV.

With the establishment of a new on line DVD rental service and in December 2005, the launch of MY SKY, a new set top box incorporating a personal video recorder, SKY is positioned to bring New Zealand viewers even more entertainment options.

On 8 February 2006, SKY completed the purchase of the New Zealand television business of Prime Television Ltd. The acquisition of a free-to-air channel gives SKY the opportunity to showcase its channels and programmes whilst ensuring that New Zealand consumers can view delayed free-to-air sports programmes such as rugby, rugby league and cricket in primetime.

For further information, please visit SKY’s web site at http://www.skytv.co.nz

ENDS

© Scoop Media