Sky eyes TV on demand

Sky is to offer two channels of TV on demand, which can be downloaded via a broadband connection.

The two channels cover movies and sport, offering 200 films and Sky Sports content. The service will only be available to customers currently subscribing to Sky's full range of existing services.

"We are rolling out two channels initially," said a Sky spokesman. "At the moment they are only available to our top-tier subscribers who have the full sports or movie package."

The company has further plans to integrate internet technology. Later in the year it will launch a service to allow users to access web pages through their televisions, using websites specially adapted for non-computer access.

All Sky boxes have an integrated modem and users can dial in and navigate to the web page they want, saving 'favourites' and using an integrated search engine.

Sky is not charging to host the pages, but page providers can buy tools to attract users to their pages, such as short codes that let customers jump to a specific page.

"Sky's investment has created a network of millions of devices that are capable of accessing internet-based services," said Ian Valentine, technical alliances director at Sky Interactive.

"With around 10 million viewers using our interactive services each month, the new portal's simple commercial model will create a new audience for website owners and a valuable new channel for e-business."

To adapt web pages for the service developers need to code pages in a WML variant called WTVML. This is designed to deal with the constraints of relatively low-resolution TV screen displays, limited input facilities, modest memory and low processing power.